My brethren, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience. Indeed we count them blessed WHO ENDURE. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful.

James 5:10-11 NKJV.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to appreciate the value and virtue of patience or perseverance in our world of instant everything – instant millionaires, instant success stories, etc. The media has a strong influence in shaping our values and influencing our perspective of life, marriage, business, ministry, success etc. and the media is filled with stories of instant everything. Even in cases where patience and process are involved, the media only focuses on the end result, neglecting or glossing over the hard work, persistence, endurance, failures and setbacks, perseverance in the face of rejections, blood and tears preceding such success stories. Thereby giving the world a wrong perspective to what success entails. It focuses only on the part and not on the whole. It celebrates sudden stardom with no foundation and we hear nothing about the 10 to 20 years that led up to the present.

When people succeed, why do they succeed and what can we learn? How long can this success last and what quality of habits over long periods of time have produced this success story? What principle(s) is it built on? The implication of this, is that it gives the wrong perspective of challenges, process, setbacks and the value of patience which in turn puts unnecessary pressure on people, leading to all kinds of compromise, crime and emotional wreckage.   

However, when you look into God’s media you’re saturated with success stories who emerge out of the furnace of afflictions, stories that reveal that the challenges were actually a refining process and their perseverance a virtue well rewarded and worth emulating. While our modern day media focus on the success stories and the celebration, God’s media articulately take us through the entire trial period culminating in success and victory, revealing faith and patience. We’ll look into this more thoroughly tomorrow.

To be continued…