Blog 3452 – 04.16.2025

Patience and Persistence

There is a phrase in my daily mantra (my daily pep-talk to myself) that goes: “ I am healthy, I am happy, I am whole, I am patient, I am persistent, but above all I am kind.” Over the course of the last ten years I have written often about patience and persistence. The Apostle Paul wrote: “I run with patience the race that is set before me laying aside every weight.” I may have that backwards, but no matter, the point I am trying to make is that the word patience here is the same word that elsewhere Paul uses when he writes “Tribulation (trouble) worketh (brings about) patience.” The word might be more accurately translated “endurance.” Trouble or hard work produces endurance. Do not pray for patience (endurance) unless you want trouble or hard work. You cannot have one without the other.

One more Bible verse that I saw in a Peanuts comic strip once. Linus is quite a philosopher and theologian and quoted this Old Testament verse to Charlie Brown who like the rest of us has known his share of trouble. “Man is destined for trouble as the sparks fly upward.” And they definitely do and therefore it comes in handy being patient and persistent.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZCS1LUuIbiYlIRd2hHpbIMsJHcnLopwJ/view?usp=drivesdk

Long Long Time