Character XI: Perseverance

I. The Command

Perseverance is the determination that as long as you are in control, you will hold on until things beyond your control force you to let go.
-Merritt, James. Character Still Counts (p. 161)

II. The Motivation

“Perseverance is not resignation, putting up with things the way they are, staying in the same old rut year after year after year, or being a doormat for people to wipe their feet on. Endurance is not a desperate hanging on but a traveling from strength to strength… Perseverance is triumphant and alive.”
-Eugene Peterson, “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction”

A. Follow the Example of ....

B. Let Go of .....

C. Look to ....

D. Look ...

“It’s not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbles of how the doer of the deeds might have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who live in the grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
-Teddy Roosevelt