Joyful Endurance
- Joshua Van Vlack
- Oct 28, 2025
- 2 min read
Last night was epic. For those who aren't baseball fans, last night witnessed the longest game in World Series history. A marathon showdown between my beloved Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays went an astounding 18 innings. That's twice the length of a normal game. The game was filled with emotional highs and lows, with the only run scored after the 7th inning being Freddie Freeman's walk-off homerun in the bottom of the 18th. This game was a test of endurance for both teams.
In the opening of his letter, James writes, "Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." God's desire for us ultimately is our holiness more than our happiness. So, in His sovereignty, He brings various trials into our lives for a very particular purpose, to serve as the catalyst to produce endurance in us, the endurance that results in our sanctification. Amazingly, in our holiness we find the most meaningful happiness.
While the trials you or I may may be facing right now might make an epic World Series game seem trivial by comparison, we can take a lesson from that game. The players on either team did not know what the outcome of the game would be, as they labored inning after inning. But we can look forward to the goal that awaits us on the other end—a celebration of sanctification because Christ's perfecting work is done.
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