In 6th and 7th grade, I had an awesome humanities teacher, Mrs. Mayer. She, sadly, passed away a few years back from an ongoing battle with cancer. However, her impact on me as a student will never be forgotten. I can remember specific assignments from her classes way back in middle school better than I can remember many events from high school or college.
One specific assignment during 6th grade sticks out in my mind. Each student was given a difficult vocab word, the type you have to look up in the dictionary because you’ve never heard it used before. And then we had to write a poem that used the word correctly. My word was “tenacious”…
te·na·cious adj tə-ˈnā-shəs persistent in maintaining, adhering to, or seeking something valued or desired
Recently, as I was reading through Philippians, I was struck by God’s tenacity. He is tenacious with His beloved. He is persistent in loving us, shepherding us, correcting us, forgiving us, and sanctifying us because He values His children. What a tenacious God we have!
Philippians 1:6 says: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”
God is at work in us. He has done, is doing, and will do amazing things in our hearts and lives because of the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ. If I think about my own life, I can think of the way God called me to Himself, how he protected me in my youth by allowing me to be raised in a Christian home. He convicted me during my early 20s that I was not living a life that was truly humble and glorifying to Him. He has molded me and changed my heart and so many of my habits and characteristics over the past five years. Now He continues to teach me through His Word, sharpen me through Godly friendships both old and new, and refine me through my marriage. And in the future, no matter what happens – good or bad – on this earth, He has promised to save me and glorify me for all eternity.
I can’t recall exactly what I wrote about in my “tenacity” poem in 6th grade, but if I were to write a poem with this same vocabulary word now, surely I would write about my tenacious God.
