For the last few months, I’ve needed to persevere. I haven’t felt the positive emotions that make the Christian faith feel ‘light’. Instead, I’ve felt off. It was rarely any one thing but rather a consistent combination of things: apathy, temptation, emotionally disconnected from my faith, lack of excitement or enthusiasm, fleeting joy, etc.

Now, it wasn’t always bad. I did have moments where God felt close, joy swelled, worship was sweet, the Scriptures popped off the page, exercising my spiritual gifts felt really good, etc. Everything was just inconsistent.

I guess a better way to put it is that my emotions regarding faith and practice the last 3–6 months have been consistently inconsistent.

I, however, have been consistent. I have consistently remained disciplined in my faith and practice even though the self-reinforcing emotions that have made consistency easy in the past were not there. This consistency has made me reflect on the concept of perseverance and my experience with it.

Thus far in 2025, my experience has been that perseverance is good in itself. I have realized that our perseverance is born out of our desire for Christ. Perseverance, especially prolonged perseverance, is a sign that Christ is active in your life and maturity is being cultivated. This has been encouraging for me because I can look back and see the progress I’ve made. Perhaps the best example is prayer.

My prayer life has totally changed over the last 1–2 years. I used to only practice extemporaneous prayer (prayer that is off-the-cuff, not scripted). However, over the last year I have introduced a lot of scripted & liturgical prayer into my routine. This has been good for me, and I can see how I’ve grown and developed.

Every morning, I read through some of the Morning Prayers in the Orthodox Prayer Book. I read Psalm 51, recite the Apostle’s Creed, and then I go through a sequence of prayers that I have written. When I started this routine, I thought the Morning Prayers in the Orthodox Prayer Book were overwhelmingly long. I struggled to stay focused and engaged; my endurance quickly tapped out. The same applied for reading Psalm 51 every morning. Part of me thought “that’s long, I don’t want to read that every morning.” 

But I kept practicing it anyway. Over time, I have continued to add more to my morning prayer.

Interestingly, the section in the Orthodox Prayer Book no longer feels long; instead, I consider it one of the shorter segments of my routine –– and one of the sweetest. I’ve developed a love for the simplicity and the consistency it offers me.

Persevering through prayer even when it felt difficult has encouraged me that Christ is changing me even though I don’t feel the euphoric emotions that can come with that process. I couldn’t sustain consistent prayer in the past. Now my day feels off and incomplete if I don’t pray in the morning. The written prayers take the guesswork out of the process, but there is always room to include extemporaneous prayer as I flow through my sequences.

Perseverance proves that maturity has happened. It proves that Christ means something to me. It gives me peace of mind knowing that I am willing to follow Christ through difficulty and discomfort. It proves that I’m interested in Christ because of who He is and not just because I think I’ll get something from Him. Interestingly enough, reflecting on how I have persevered has given me the peace I previously thought was associated with positive emotions and came through the absence of difficulty.

We get more of God when we humbly pursue Him, and perseverance is one way we do that.