The Discipline of spiritual tenacity - Chambers, Oswald
Psalm 46
The world as it is, is not good enough to be true. We ought not to be satisfied with it. God has prepared some better thing. But it by no means follows that what god has prepared is what we should now choose. There may be heavy sorrows and disappointments in store for us, if so it will mean that our hopes need purifying.
Forsyth
tenacity is more than endurance, it is endurance which has at its heart the absolute certainty that what we look for is going to transpire. Spiritual tenacity is the supreme effort of the spirit of god in a man refusing to believe that his hero is going to be conquered. The greatest fear a man has is not that he will be damned, but that Jesus Christ will be worsted; that the things he stood for love and justice, forgiveness and kindness among men, wont win out in the end. Then comes the call to spiritual tenacity, not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately and tenaciously with the certainty that god is not going to be worsted.
1. In the wildness of nature (psalm 46:13)
There is a wildness all through nature and we are suddenly struck with its brutality and ask, why, if god is a beneficent creator, does he allow such diabolical things to happen? Has the bible anything to say about this, any revelation that explains it? The bible explanation is that nature is in a disorganised condition, that it is out of gear with gods purposes, and will only become organised when god and man are one (see Romans 8:19).
We all have our problems, something about which we say, now, why is it? Never take an explanation which is too slight.
A materialistic explanation or an evolutionary explanation cannot be final. The great thing is to remain absolutely confident in god. Be still, and know that i am god.
2. In the whirlwind of nations(psalm 46:47)
According to the bible, the nations as we know them are the outcome of what ought never to have been. Civilisation was started by a murderer, and the whole of our civilised life is based on competition. There are grand ingredients in civilised life, but the basis is not good. In the whirlwind of nations such as is on just now, many a man has lost, not his faith in god (i have never met the man who had lost his faith in god), but belief in his beliefs. When a mans belief in his beliefs suffers a severe blow, for a while he thinks he is disbelieving in god; in reality all he has lost is the conception of god that had been presented to him and he is coming to a knowledge of god along a new line. There are those who have maintained their faith in god, and the only language they can use to express it isi know god is god, although hell seems on top all round.
3. In the weariness of nemesis (psalm 46:811)
A man may sin magnificently, but he is punished drearily. The whole of our prison system is a day after day nemesis which makes men wish they had died rather than that the gates of paradise had clanged behind them.
We are apt to make the mistake of looking for god to put things ostensibly right immediately. If we dwell much on the second coming without having a right spiritual relationship to god, it will make us ignore the need for spiritual tenacity. Just now, Jesus says, the kingdom of god cometh not with observation: . . . For lo, the kingdom of god is in the midst [mg] of you (RV ). When our lord does come, he will come quickly, and we will find he has been there all the time. One of the greatest strains in life is the strain of waiting for god. Because thou didst keep the word of my patience (RV). God takes the saints like a bow which he stretches and at a certain point the saint says, i cant stand any more, but god does not heed, he goes on stretching because he is aiming at his mark, not ours, and the patience of the saints is that they hang in until god lets the arrow fly.
If your hopes are being disappointed just now it means that they are being purified. There is nothing noble the human mind has ever hoped for or dreamed of that will not be fulfilled. Dont jump to conclusions too quickly; many things lie unsolved, and the biggest test of all is that god looks as if he were totally indifferent. Remain spiritually tenacious.