Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. (Romans 5:3-4)
The 2024 US Open at Pinehurst No. 2 tested the patience and endurance of the best players in the world. Exhaustion walked players away from the eighteenth green. Every hole was a grind of narrow fairways and pin-point greens.
The Greek word for endurance, hupomone, translates “to persevere, remain under, and patience.” Bryson DeChambeau played the seventy-second hole with hupomone.
His poor tee shot left him with no backswing and his ball against a tree root. Bryson punched his ball to one of the toughest shots in golf, a fifty-five-yard greenside bunker shot. Needing an up and down to win, Bryson remained patient. He hit an unbelievable bunker shot and then made a three-foot par putt for victory.
In a Golf Digest article, Joel Beall wrote about Bryson’s final round, “For the better part of five hours, it wasn’t smooth, and it was far from easy. It was simply the performance of stubborn will and conviction that comes from the countless hours of work and dreams and disappointment, a cost that can never be measured and a price only he knows he paid.”
Suffering produced endurance.
In his own words, Bryson commented, “I’ve realized that there’s a lot more to life than just golf. Treating others, first and foremost respecting yourself, is super important to be able to treat others with respect, as well. That’s one of the big things that I’ve learned. I’m not perfect. I’m human. Everyone’s human. Certainly, those low moments have helped establish a new mind frame of who I am, what’s expected, what I can do and what I want to do in my life. To answer your question quite frankly, what have I learned? Having the right people around you.”
Endurance produced character.
Endurance doesn’t develop quickly. It requires naming our suffering, lamenting, grieving, and asking God to teach us. And then we participate with God in the process.
It may take many cycles of suffering to produce endurance before character growth sprouts. And sometimes it remains far off, maybe never. Raising the white flag of surrender might feel easier than pressing on.
I don’t know if Bryson has faith in Jesus, but like him, we need the right people around us as we journey through suffering, which produces endurance and character. We can’t do it alone.
On the “Being Known Podcast with Curt Thompson and Pepper Sweeney, S9E7: Perseverance,” a few applications were given on perseverance. I think they are helpful to us today, too.
“Make a list of the areas of your life in which you sense needing to persevere.”
“Which of these items have you feeling overwhelmed and not wanting to persevere?”
“Consider sharing with someone you trust about these areas and begin to practice monitoring how you sense your life changing when you allow others to join you in your work of perseverance.”
Prayer: Lord, help me grow in endurance that produces character. I need you and others on my journey.