Endurance

and what I learned from my rowing team

Hi there! I couldn’t be happier that you’ve chosen to read what I’m putting into the world. I pour out my words here every week to help you learn to experience God’s presence in everyday moments and explore ways to develop your life so that it can be formed by the fruit of the Spirit. Trust me, friend. You’re in the right place.

Endurance

In college, I was on the rowing team. (If you don’t know a lot about rowing, here’s a quick primer.)

The shells (boats) are either filled with 4 or 8 crew plus a coxswain (a coach/onboard motivator of a person you love to hate who shouts at you unrelentingly the entire time). Everyone has a 12-foot oar that locks into the shell’s gunwales. The crew has to work together and row at the same time, following the coxswain’s orders; otherwise, you risk breaking the oarlock or rigging, getting smacked in the face with an oar (also known as “catching a crab”), or flipping the boat and everyone taking a swim.

At my school, practice was very early (pre-dawn) on the river, and land training (gym and running) was in the afternoon. As part of our crew’s training to improve our endurance, we were required to run—a lot. We also spent many hours on rowing machines. We trained hard, but we were not training just so we could get up early, push our bodies to the point of exhaustion, hit the gym, run 5 miles, and go home. We were training for a purpose: to race against other college teams (and win).

Depending on the time of year, there are two types of races. Longer races, typically in the fall, are called “head” races, which range from 4000 to 6000 meters (2.5-3.5-ish miles). “Sprints,” typically held in the spring and summer, are 1000-2000 meters (around a mile and a quarter).

In a head race, the strategy is to maintain a high, sustained pace over a long period of time. In a sprint, as the name implies, you are 100%-flat-out-flying the entire 2000 meters. (They are terrible - ha.) Both require an enormous amount of endurance.

All said, when you’re in a long boat with 4 or 8 of your crewmates gliding across the water at top speed, you need to know that everyone is going to work together and not give up halfway through the race. Physical endurance in those moments is key, so for us, running long distances and training daily was important. Then, to make sure we were ready, we would practice races at the same pace as the real race, so that when the time came, we knew our bodies could do what was required when it mattered most.

Photo by Peter Pryharski on Unsplash

Merriam-Webster defines endurance as “the ability to withstand hardship, pain, or stress, or to sustain a prolonged, difficult physical or mental effort without yielding.”

Romans 5:3-5 defines endurance as a product of suffering. (I’d say that’s true based on my crew training ◡̈ .)

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (ESV)

No matter the definition, endurance isn’t easy. It requires you to have an “in it for the long haul” mentality, with the sober knowledge that it will come with hardship. This point of view is true in crew and in our lives with the Lord. (And, news flash, we do not get a pass on suffering just because we know Jesus. Hello, John 16:33). However, as believers, we can be encouraged that we aren’t suffering for the sake of suffering. It is purposeful and produces something in us, something truly beautiful, if we are willing to endure. We have to train ourselves to endure and not give up when things are difficult. (James 1:2) This will not come naturally or by accident; choosing to endure is a purposeful decision. As we learn to value endurance, the more it will grow in us. This is best seen in the fruit of the Spirit of faithfulness.

To grow deeply with the Lord and have the fruit of the Spirit develop in your life is a lifelong pursuit. We need to keep in mind that this life is like a head race and that growing with Him takes time. (It’s why it’s sometimes called a “walk with the Lord”, not a sprint.) In a world of quick-and-easy, 3-simple-steps, and TikTok tutorials, we need to remember that those things do not apply to our relationship with Jesus.

Fast is the enemy of deep. Deep takes time. We will not learn everything we need to about Him or the life we’ve been given in 15 minutes. Our growth with Him is meant to be slow and intentional. That, as Romans lays out, produces character in us and in turn, the fruit of the Spirit. That, my friends, is the reason we endure.

(To read more about faithfulness and how the characteristics of a Spirit filled life can be formed in us, check out Finding Everyday Fruit—my book on how to discover and develop the fruit of the Spirit in your everyday life.)

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I hope this little newsletter reminds you that He always wants to teach you and point your heart toward His (even through stories about crew). His presence and the fruit of a Spirit-filled life are available to you in everyday moments if you’re willing to raise your awareness to them.

Much love,

-TLB

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About the author:

Hi there! My name is Tara. (Most people call me T.) I am the author of Finding Everyday Fruit and Waiting On Wonders. I am also a contributing author in the 30-Day Devotional, Chosen, from Seacoast Sisterhood, and the 365-Day Devotional, A Year of Hope, from Hope*Books. I love helping people experience God’s presence in everyday moments and grow in their discovery of how the fruit of the Spirit can be activated in their lives. I’m a summer girl, lucky enough to have been married to my college sweetheart for 30 of them. My kids are amazing, my ‘73 CJ is rad, and Hawaii forever has my heart.

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