Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.
Revelation 3:10-12
In their 1962 book Cradles of Eminence, Victor and Mildred Goetzel studied the lives of 413 highly accomplished individuals, searching for common factors in their upbringing. Surprisingly, the most consistent thread was not privilege or opportunity. It was adversity. In fact, 392 of the 413 had faced significant obstacles such as sickness, poverty, or limited resources. Those who achieve the most are often those who learn to persevere through hardship rather than avoid it.
There are very few things in life of any importance or lasting value that come easily. A good marriage, a strong family, a healthy church, or a flourishing career all require the commitment to keep going when things get hard. In his poem “The Ladder of St. Augustine,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote:
We have not wings, we cannot soar;
But we have feet to scale and climb
By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time.
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.
