Pastor Jim Jackson
Richmond Hill Presbyterian Church
Had a banana tree growing under the eve of our house on a back corner. It wasn’t the kind that actually produces bananas, but it looked like a fruit-bearing banana tree. While it did lend some kind of pretty to that corner of the lawn, it had grown tall. It actually had grown into the eve.
My cure was a radical one, cutting it down and digging up all apparent roots.
Yet, somehow, a new tree emerged from the same soil. That called for radical action, digging every remnant from the soil.
When I first cut down the tree, I dumped it in the woods behind our house.
Several months later, behold banana plants were growing where I threw the portions, totally upon top of the soil. Say what you will, that non fruit bearing tree proved persistent. I cut down one tree and now I have four. Persistence, that’s what it is.
Also, when looking at the canopy of water oaks out back with a sharp eye, one will discover resurrection ferns growing on top of the limbs. They are quite visible and beautiful when there’s enough moisture in the air.
But when that’s not the case, they took dried, dead. But don’t give up on them, for they will emerge again with the next rain, for they are persistent.
And to beat it all, how about those weeds growing in the cracks on our highways? I mean they aren’t planted by human hands, fertilized, or watered except with the rain. Yet there they are under seemingly impossible circumstances claiming life, growing. That’s persistence.
Persistence is what Job had. That Old Testament character lost every thing— farm, family, friends, and health. Yet he didn’t give up on faith even when falsely accused by his friends, and with bad advice from his wife: “Curse God and die.”
And we must not forget Jesus’ parable about the importunate widow, importunate meaning to the point of an annoyance or intrusion.
She was intruding upon a judge to hear her case and to help her cause. Initially the judge seemed to look the other way, but finally he relented and gave her, her wish. Using an argument from the lesser to the greater, Jesus argued that if a tough ole judge would say yes to a persistent widow, how much more our loving Father is ready to grant our needs. As I see it at least, God has no pleasure in our grovelling demands, but he honors the faith that doesn’t give up.