Persistence and Patience

A Bible sto­ry I preached on recent­ly told of a judge who kept get­ting both­ered, day in and day out, by a wid­ow who demand­ed jus­tice against her oppo­nent. It’s said that this judge had lit­tle respect for any god, or peo­ple for that mat­ter. He kept deny­ing this woman her requests; nev­er­the­less, she per­sist­ed. This pow­er­ful offi­cial even­tu­al­ly got so tired of her bad­ger­ing that he grant­ed her wish. The para­ble was to por­tray the need nev­er to lose heart, to be per­sis­tent, and also to be patient.

I’m not sure how I fare in the are­nas of per­sis­tence and patience. I called a Subaru deal­er­ship to see about some repairs hop­ing I could drop it off that morn­ing and get it back in a cou­ple of days. The next open­ing wasn’t for anoth­er week. I had a flash of impa­tient ire. Our kitchen remod­el, sup­pos­ed­ly only tak­ing a cou­ple of weeks when we first met with a con­trac­tor, had us even with­out a sink for six weeks. That ire showed up again.

The ongo­ing fights and strug­gles in advo­cat­ing for what’s right and just are tru­ly nev­er-end­ing. Many believe that the work has only to be accom­plished by leg­is­la­tures, or pro­fes­sion­als, or even by their god, but the call to this work comes to us. 

Even when it comes to per­sis­tence, I haven’t had to fight for much, per­son­al­ly in my life. I’m a cis white male in cen­tral Kentucky. I maybe have to be per­sis­tent and patient to find Buffalo Trace on any shelves. I am per­sis­tent, though, in try­ing always to do what’s right for my fam­i­ly, my com­mu­ni­ty, and my con­gre­ga­tion. There’s nev­er been an elec­tion when I haven’t vot­ed since 1985. I try to have some sort of prayer prac­tice every day. I’m a firm believ­er that every­one has a right to be heard, espe­cial­ly those under­served and under­rep­re­sent­ed in our pub­lic dia­logues. I will con­tin­ue to speak up and out for injus­tice and relief for peo­ple who need it.

People who don’t give up are my heroes. Colonel Sanders tried to sell his fried chick­en recipe over 1,000 times. Historical fig­ures like Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela per­sist­ed and inspired oth­ers to do the same. They also had to be patient; as we all know, change rarely can turn on a dime. When the Emancipation Proclamation was released, slav­ery didn’t auto­mat­i­cal­ly end in this coun­try. We’re still deal­ing with the reper­cus­sions of that after­math. The Voting Rights Act demand­ed equi­ty, but it didn’t change the hearts of all cit­i­zens. Persistence and patience.

The ongo­ing fights and strug­gles in advo­cat­ing for what’s right and just are tru­ly nev­er-end­ing. Many believe that the work has only to be accom­plished by leg­is­la­tures, or pro­fes­sion­als, or even by their god, but the call to this work comes to us. All of us. We may or may not ever see the right and the good that we demand, but must always try.