Patient Endurance
A thoughtful look at how the not-so-sexy virtue of remaining steady (despite obstacles) sets us up to flourish.
Once upon a time, I sat next to the illustrator John Hendrix during an arts conference. He scribbled away, wildly transforming lecture notes into a masterpiece of words and images. Not one inch of white space remained. It looked like chaos—but, like an English flower garden, “beautifully ordered chaos.” I’m afraid I don’t remember anything about the lecture, but I’ll never forget watching John work while I snooped over his shoulder.
Here’s a sketchbook image from his portfolio called “How to Survive the Arc of Every Long Project.”
I love everything about this illustration. It’s a great comfort, despite the skull and crossbones. Patience. Perseverance. Trust your process.1 It reminds me that life is aggravatingly nonlinear at times and that I’m not alone. There are lots of people wrestling with their own persnickety projects, and it’s okay if the creative process sometimes feels more like scaling Mount Doom. Especially if the work is deeply personal (and, really, when is it not?).
For a time, I pinned this illustration above my writing desk as an icon to remind me that perseverance pays off. At least, I hoped it did. That was five years ago. I still haven’t published the book I was working on at the time. But I did write it, and that’s something.
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Lately, I’ve been reflecting on what the book of 2 Thessalonians calls patient endurance. Like most virtues, it’s not very sexy and hard to quantify, isn’t it? It’s pretty boring to watch, too.
But the act of remaining steady on a course, despite obstacles, is a transformative way of living and prepares you to become the kind of person who wakes up ready for goodness every single day.
When we normalize struggle, maybe we can even learn to open our hands to what it teaches and forms in us.
In the pursuit of any goal, patient endurance matters. Because endurance is intrinsically linked to becoming.
Justin McRoberts shared something equally compelling during a different art talk, which I wrote down immediately: “It’s not about your work, and it’s not about you making great work,” he said. “It’s about you becoming the kind of person who makes great work.”
Sadly, I don’t remember this talk either (sorry, Justin!), but these words still haunt me in the best way. Not only do I want to publish, but I want to be the kind of person who commits to—and completes—a substantial writing project. I want to be someone who is driven by personal mission, despite weariness, illness, marketplace trends, or any other obstacle that comes.
As the hymn goes, there will be times when we’ll be tempted to despair, yet the human spirit is remarkably resilient. It wants to hope. It wants to heal, and it wants to dream. But it’s so damn hard to endure patiently when there’s such little evidence of positive change sometimes—especially when our time, money, and energy run low. In my own struggles, I’m still very much in “the middle,” but I’m grateful for the fruit that persistence has brought so far.
If you find yourself somewhere between where you’ve been and where you want to be, take heart. You’re still here, so it’s not the end of the story.
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In a guest post called Refusing to Let God Off the Hook, Eugene Peterson once wrote this:
“When [these] people go through suffering, their lives are often transformed, deepened, marked with beauty and holiness in remarkable ways that could never have been anticipated before the suffering. In other words, we need to quit feeling sorry for people who suffer and instead look up to them, learn from them, and—if they will let us—join them in protest and prayer. Pity can be nearsighted and condescending; shared suffering can be dignifying and life-changing.”
If you’re patiently enduring something, you have so much to offer us. Wisdom, inspiration. Your hope is hard-won. What can make all the difference is not just finding the breakthrough we long for, but when another person actually sees us in our struggle and is kind enough to tell us that our life is marked by beauty or points them to God. I want to be this kind of person.
God’s presence and blessings are not just reserved for some future golden hour when we’re rid of everything that plagues us most—no, he is our home, our very breath, sustaining us right now even as we long for wholeness.
May you find all that you need today to keep going.
With you,
Bailey
Listen to Your Life offers biweekly essays that explore the more tender parts of life and faith. Subscribe for free, or support my work by becoming a paid subscriber for $5/month. Either way, I’m so glad you’re here.
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Emily P. Freeman recently released a great episode called How to Know If a Process Is Worth Trusting on her podcast, The Next Right Thing. I found it so helpful in discerning the difference between when it’s time to trust the process and when we need to disrupt it. I think you’ll enjoy it, too.
I appreciated this so much, Bailey. I especially liked how you focused on character as the goal of patience, not the thing we’re waiting for. That’s what scripture teaches us as well. If we’d only listen. We have so much to learn in the process.
Bailey, this was so so very good. At many points, I found myself nodding my head in agreement, wincing at the reality of how not sexy patient endurance really is (as you explained beautifully), and rooting for us all who are silently waiting for things we may never see come to fulfillment on this side of heaven. Yet, we persist. Rooting for you always, and am deeply grateful for the way in which you approach the world!