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My 98 year old mom voted today.  It was not an easy task.  Although blessed with a sharp mind and generally good health (she would never complain anyway), she hasn’t left her house in over a year.  It was a major, hours long ordeal to ready hersel and be driven to the polls.  Why did she bother?  The simple answer is that she felt it was her duty as a citizen of this great and blessed country.  She felt an obligation, a connection, to a cause greater than herself.  As corny as it may sound, many people, like myself, joined the armed forces in order to be part of a cause greater than themselves.  Partly duty, partly love, and a search for personal significance.  Persistence implies standing firm, doing our duty at work and in our churches, in the face of adversity.  Adversity can take many forms.  Physical adversity (as with my mom, or in the case of a soldier in Afghanistan), emotional (fatigue, anger, discontent), or spiritual (questioning, backsliding, attacks from others).  The Apostle Paul spent a lot of time and effort in exhorting the early churches to stand firm, be faithful, persist in doing right in the face of adversity.  “Perseverance and faith in all persecutions and trials…” “Stand firm!”  (2 Thessalonians 1&2).  Perseverance can come at a price, but also has its rewards.  “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,” (Matthew 6:19-21), run the race (of life and faith) and faint not, (2 Timothy 4:7) that your joy might be complete… (Philippians 2), so that when the final trumpet has sounded we might hear the words of Christ, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” (Matthew 25:21)