... so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. Colossians 1:11-12
The Bible has a fair bit to say about endurance, because this business of following Jesus until the end of our days on earth is hard.
.. let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus... Hebrews 12:1-2
The thing I find hardest in my walk with God is noticing when I've stopped. It happens gradually, as the buzz from whatever my last great experience from God fades into a memory. My initial excitement that had me reading my Bible expectantly, dissipates. My desire to walk with God moment by moment slips. Time passes by, and I realise that it's been some time since I picked up my Bible, and it is now sitting, gathering dust between Church on a Sunday morning and home group on a Thursday night.
It was home group last Thursday night that reminded me where I was. I felt a pang of guilt before people arrived as I realised I wasn't quite sure where my Bible was, nor when I last read it.
As we read Colossians 1, I couldn't help but be struck by verse 5:
... the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you Colossians 1:5-6
I wondered if there was anything in the fact that the hope that causes faith and love is stored up in heaven:
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. Matthew 6:19-20
The source of my hope - that I am loved and redeemed by the God who made me - is stored in heaven, where it cannot be destroyed or stolen. Even my own forgetfulness and fickleness cannot alter the fact that I have been made new. Nothing is required of me, I do not and cannot add anything to this fact. All I can do is respond to it:
... giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the kingdom of light.