Perseverance in Personal Growth

We live in a culture obsessed with shortcuts. We want six-minute abs, thirty-day transformations, and overnight success. We’ve applied this same thinking to our spiritual lives, searching for the conference, book, or emotional experience that will catapult us to maturity. But God’s design for growth looks radically different.

Eugene Peterson captured it perfectly when he wrote,

“We assume that if something can be done at all, it can be done quickly and efficiently. Our attention spans have been conditioned by thirty-second commercials. Our sense of reality has been flattened by thirty-page abridgments…There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness…Everyone is in a hurry. The persons whom I lead in worship, among whom I counsel, visit, pray, preach and teach, want shortcuts. They want me to help them fill out the form that will get them instant credit (in eternity). They are impatient for results. They have adopted the lifestyle of a tourist and only want the high points. But a pastor is not a tour guide…The Christian life cannot mature under such conditions and in such ways.”

This “long obedience in the same direction” he is referring to isn’t just good advice. It’s a deeply biblical truth.

Think about the heroes of faith in Scripture. Abraham waited 25 years between God’s promise and Isaac’s birth (and he was already old!) Moses spent 40 years in the wilderness before leading Israel (then he spent 40 more…) David was anointed king as a teenager but didn’t take the throne until he was 30. Jesus himself spent 30 years in relative obscurity before his public ministry. God is never in a hurry when it comes to growing his people.

Paul understood this when he told the Philippians, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). Notice the timeframe here. God starts the work now but completes it at the day of Jesus Christ. Spiritual growth is a lifelong journey.

This flies in the face of our instant-everything culture. We want microwavable maturity. But God works in crockpot time. (Can you tell I’m hungry?) He’s after deep transformation, not surface-level change. Think about how Peter describes this process:

“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love” (2 Peter 1:5-7).

Peter isn’t describing a one-time event. He’s laying out a lifetime of spiritual building blocks. Each quality develops and strengthens the next. There’s an intentionality here, a steady persistence in the same direction.

The writer of Hebrews uses the metaphor of running: “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2). Endurance isn’t about speed. It’s about staying power. The ability to keep going when the initial excitement fades, when obstacles arise, when everyone else quits.

This endurance is what transforms us. James writes, “Let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:4). The path to being “perfect and complete” isn’t through shortcuts. It’s through steadfastness—that daily decision to follow Jesus, to obey his Word, to repent when we fail, and to get back up and continue the journey.

Our problem is that we want spiritual growth without spiritual sweat. We want the results without the routine. But Paul used athletic training as a metaphor for spiritual growth for a reason. “Train yourself for godliness,” he told Timothy, “for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way” (1 Timothy 4:7-8).

Training isn’t glamorous. It’s the daily disciplines that nobody sees. It’s getting up early to pray when you’d rather sleep. It’s opening your Bible when Netflix seems more appealing. It’s choosing forgiveness when bitterness feels justified. It’s serving others when you’d rather be served. It’s these daily, faithful choices that slowly transform us.

The Hebrew word for “waiting” on the Lord (kavah) doesn’t suggest passive sitting around. It conveys active, expectant endurance. It’s what Isaiah describes when he says, “They who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31). Did you catch the progression? First flying, then running, then walking. The climax isn’t soaring—it’s the steady, patient walking day after day without giving up.

Jesus himself taught this principle in the parable of the sower. The seed that produced a harvest wasn’t the one that sprang up quickly. It was the one that fell on good soil and, as Luke’s version tells us, bore “fruit with patience” (Luke 8:15). Patient endurance—that’s the secret to spiritual fruitfulness.

So what does this mean for us practically? It means we need to consistently embrace the ordinary means of grace God has provided for our growth. Regular worship. Consistent time in God’s Word. Faithful prayer. Meaningful engagement with other believers. Genuinely seeking reconciliation. Confessing sins. None of these practices is flashy or exciting. But over time, they reshape us.

It means we need to stop chasing spiritual high moments and start embracing the daily work of following Jesus. It means we need to develop spiritual muscle memory through habitual obedience. It means we need to view our failures not as reasons to quit but as opportunities to experience God’s grace and try again.

Think about the transformation of a tree. It doesn’t grow six feet in a day. It adds imperceptible rings year after year. But those rings make it stronger, more resilient against the storms. That’s how God grows us. Not through overnight transformations but through faithful obedience over time.

The same God who led Israel through the wilderness for 40 years is leading you.The same God who spent decades preparing David to be king is preparing you. The same God who worked patiently through generations to bring about his plan of redemption is working in your life right now.

So don’t give up when growth seems slow. Don’t abandon the path when you stumble. Don’t lose heart when others seem to be sprinting ahead. God is doing a deeper work in you than you realize. Remember what Paul told the Galatians: “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9).

This is God’s way. Not instant transformation but patient endurance. Not overnight success but “long obedience in the same direction.”

That’s how real, lasting growth happens. That’s how God designed it.

So, let’s grow (slow), God’s way.