By April Tribe Giauque
Do you have Spiritual Endurance? What even is that? Spiritual endurance is keeping close to the Spirit no matter the trial or struggle. Staying close to God during your challenging times gives you the anchor or your rock to build on no matter what Satan is going to throw at you.
Let me be quite clear. If you were wondering if there was a Father in Heaven or an evil bad guy that someone might call the devil, let me reassure you, that there are both.
Father in Heaven is the father of our spirits. He has a way for us to return to live with Him, through His Son, Jesus Christ, but it is up to us. We have the agency to choose freedom and eternal life through Accepint Jesus Christ and the ordinances and covenants or to choose to follow Satan and have death and misery.
You won’t have "death" right away. You will have your feelings and selfish wants confirmed, which leads to rebellion and in some cases full denial of truth because it doesn’t fit your narrative or your feelings. Black and white blend to foggy grey and there is no right or wrong, just feelings or emotions, selfish desires, and no cares for others because your rights are first and foremost, and remember to shame, blame, and maim others if they don’t follow along.
Oh yeah, the death thing. Well, that comes in a spiritual form as we are led carefully down to hell than physical death because some choices lead us there (behaviors, lifestyles, etc.) or age finally catches us.
But guess what? Heavenly Father still loves you no matter what you choose to do. He will still be with you through the very end. Granted some of our choices are not going to be great, and he will be disappointed, but he will still love us.
Now whether we feel that love or not is up to us to know how to feel and hear Him. We might be so far out there that it’s hard to hear Him, but he is still there. So, with that being said, here are my top five steps for Spiritual Endurance.
Step #1 Hope
Hope is the eternal Pinpoint of Light that our Spirit cling to. It allows us to survive our worst days, and find joy in our best days. Hope is a spark of belief that God is real and that Jesus is who He says He is.
Hope is found in children—in their smiles, giggles, and their eyes. There is potential for everything that a child hopes for to actually happen. that’s what makes children magical. There is hope in all things and how do you know that? You can get to it through prayer.
Step #2 Faith
Next is Faith. Faith is the action behind your hopes and beliefs. Faith brings to your prayer. Prayer can be simple conversations with Heavenly Father, they can be never-ending pleas to Him. They can be in safety, health, or in dire need, or when you are in pain. The point is prayer and through offering them daily, you start to know your Heavenly Father and build a relationship with him. You’ll find ways of how he speaks to you: through thoughts, through others, through scriptures, through a feeling, but it’s up to you to stay long enough with the relationship to know how He speaks to you.
Faith also leads us to serve one another. It is in that civility and love towards your fellow human being that you see them as that, a fellow friend, brother, or sister. In a world plagued by demand for answers, justice, and division because of policies and agendas that vilify one another—just what Satan wants so that we don’t see each other, we just see objects and agendas so we can build up prejudices.
Faith to read your scriptures. Satan doesn’t want you to do that, so he presents scriptures as that “old dusty story,” a story full of hate and prejudices, or that old tradition that might trip you up—you’re more modern and with it. You are better than reading something that outdated. It’s cute for other generations, but it doesn’t speak to you.
Faith means to try hard things, to hope in all things, and to endure all things. Faith moves us to join hands in a human chain as we wade into the ocean to save another’s life. Faith is going to school every day to complete your education because your opportunities open up after it.
Faith is going to church each Sunday, reading your scriptures, saying daily prayers adding life-sustaining spiritual oil into your lamps to combat the doubt all around us. Faith is putting on the armor of God every day to fight battles and never quit. (Now, for sure we can all have a hard day, lots of tears, and feel like just taking a break, but we never QUIT!). We get back up because of our faith and try, try, again.
Step # 3 Free Agency
You have the agency to choose freedom or condemnation. It’s up to you.
For it must needs to be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility (2 Nephi 2:11 BOM).
What do I mean by that? All of us have a choice to make every day. Are we going to listen to the negative voice in our head, or are we going to listen to the positive voice in our head? I know, that’s way too simple. Well, hello, it’s supposed to be that simple.
I call it light and darkness. In fact, so do other people. A famous quote by JK Rowling is, “We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.”
Here is something powerful to keep in mind. Light is truth and Darkness is truth meaning that there is opposition in all things. That is just the truth of life. If you find yourself in places where it is grey and foggy and you feel no foundation, know you have been led down a pathway that doesn’t have a great outcome. The result you think and hope will be there won’t last. There is always time to soften our hearts and try again—after all this is Spiritual Endurance. So keep it that simple and act accordingly.
Step # 4 Getting Out there Every Day
Now, getting out there every day no matter what is next? Wait, what? Really? Yup. Now, to be clear, hard things happen. Rain falls on the good and the not-so-good. Sun shines on the good and not-so-good. Hail, snow, hurricanes, floods, droughts, financial ruin, financial gain, and death can happen to all of us. The key is to keep getting up and going on.
When the good and the bad happen you will have a voice pop into your head. Two pop in there, but where you are focused is the one that is the loudest. Like the old Native American legend of the story of two wolves. We have both inside of us. Which one wins? The one we feed. Or in other words, the one we listen to the most, so which one do you want to listen to?
Look, you have the choice to listen to that negative voice in your head. I call it your Shame Shadow or you can fight through it, gain your spiritual muscles, and know that Someone is looking out for you. You can listen to the Light you have inside of you! You have Light and shadow so which one will you follow?
Because you have a light inside of you and a Heavenly Father and Christ that loves you, that doesn’t mean They remove the challenges from you, but they are beside you helping you to endure them. As we get up and go out every day our experience will teach us. But here’s the kicker we have to keep getting back up and back out there.
It’s like when a baby begins to walk, fall after fall if we are beside them cheering them on, and supporting them, then they have the chance. They will make it. If we take away the “fail” or the fall, they will never learn how to walk. They continue to get up and try, try again.
Step # 5 You Won’t Have the All the Answers
I hate to break it to you, but even with all the prayers, faith, and endurance in the World, you just won’t find all the answers to all of your questions here in this life. There are some things that we just need to have faith in. There are some things that we just have to endure.
Well, crap—that stinks. Yup, I guess, or maybe accepting that and exercising step one-four and finding light and joy anyway, is a better way to go than to ride the emotional roller-coaster of no foundation and a mix and mash of fog that is happening all around you.
Drop the whole control thing. No! I want all the answers now! Wo, wait, was that my two-year-old right there, or was that you as the mature adult? I see, it’s crazy. If we try to manipulate our lives to believe that we have control or that we can know first before anyone else, we are going to have disappointed our entire life.
Just accept that you won’t know all the answers here. There’s a whole myriad of reasons why, so just trust that what answers you do have, go forward with those. Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith. The sun will still come out the light will still happen even on a stormy day. Trust in it and let go of the control.
Well, that was a bit blunt. Yes, that’s how it all comes down in the end, so why not wave off the fog of confusion that is surrounding the world in 2022, and choose light over darkness—even if it is just a Pinpoint? Those are my five ways to have Spiritual Endurance. Merry Christmas!
On that note, and before I sign off, I have some GREAT NEWS!!
Merry Christmas and Surprise! I am honored to be published in another book once again in 2022!
My dear friend, David Pasqualone, invited me along with eleven other amazing authors to share what makes us all remarkable. I’m in chapter 11 of this book called: Remarkable People.
Two years ago, I was honored to be on David’s podcast, and I shared my story of overcoming unbelievable odds with Pinpoints of Light; Escaping the Abyss of Abuse. My memoir of the events that happened in my first marriage.
Following that podcast, I examined the story over and over. As my heart narrowed everything down to one sentence, the power of light was given to me from my faith. Heavenly Father was the only way in order to flee from my situation. I stayed close to God while experiencing all the trauma and abuse, and he helped me to escape.
I counted each blessing in my life from the escape to my life now, and five repeated blessings, or dare I say patterns occurred. The result became chapter 11 titled, Why I Stay. These are the five key points as to Why I Stay with Jesus Christ.
What are those five key points? Well, you will have to read the book to discover that. I can’t give it all away. But here is something to whet your appetite. The character that emerges from the pages as you read will shock and surprise you. So again, you’ll just have to read it to find out.
But to get you more excited and to bring you more goodness, here are the other contributors to the book.
INTRODUCTION
by David Pasqualone …………………………………….……….. XX
CHAPTER ONE: INTENTIONAL OPTIMISM
Finding Your Purpose and Living Your Best Life
by David Richman ……………..……………………………..…… XX
CHAPTER TWO: PROSPERITY
How to Always Have Massive Prosperity in Your Life
by Jerremy Alexander Newsome ………………………….…….. XX
CHAPTER THREE: PERSPECTIVE
You Cannot Be Both
by Danny Covey …………………………………………………... XX
CHAPTER FOUR: POSITIVE IMPACT
You Are Valuable
by Noah Young ……………………………………………………. XX
CHAPTER FIVE: MEANINGFUL WORK
All Work Is Holy Work
by George Hofmann ……..…………………………………….…. XX
CHAPTER SIX: ENTREPRENEURIAL SUCCESS
From 20 Walks of Life
by Gene M. Valentino …………………………………………….. XX
CHAPTER SEVEN: FULFILLMENT
Never Tone Down Your Walk
by Claire Chandler ………………………………………………… XX
CHAPTER EIGHT: RESILIENCE
Accept & Embrace It All
by Kimberly Anne Bell …………………………………...……….. XX
CHAPTER NINE: INTIMATE BETRAYAL
The Secret That Almost Killed Our Marriage
by Kirsten D Samuel ………………………………………..…….. XX
CHAPTER TEN: ANXIETY
From Panic to Peace
by Rob Jackson ……………………………………………………. XX
CHAPTER ELEVEN: SPIRITUAL ENDURANCE
Why I Stayed
by April Tribe Giauque …………………………………..……….. XX
CHAPTER TWELVE: PERSEVERANCE
Persevere Past Your Paralysis
by Dr. James Perdue ……………………………….....………….. XX
CONCLUSION
by David Pasqualone ……………………………………………… XX
May you have a blessed and wonderful 12 days before Christmas! Happy Christmas everyone!
Join me tomorrow night at 6:30 pm Mountain time for a SHORT but Powerful Beacon of Light Podcast all about your Spiritual Endurance, Why I Stay!
YOUTUBE
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