What does enduring to the end mean?
This phrase has bounced around my head in various ways: sometimes as an abstract plodding along until the Lord calls you home, sometimes as a holding fast to the iron rod. As I’ve really pondered how I define “enduring to the end,” I realized that I’ve often felt it was a passive phrase. I was wrong.
While studying the Doctrine and Covenants recently, “endure to the end” suddenly became much more active to me.
The dictionary defines “endure” as:
- suffer (something painful or difficult) patiently
- remain in existence; last
Both of these definitions apply to Jesus Christ’s words to his people at the temple in Bountiful—and us.
Behold, I am the law and the light. Look unto me, and endure to the end, and ye shall live; for unto him that endureth to the end will I give eternal life.
In the Doctrine and Covenants, warnings via parables or clear language depict a returning Lord “consuming the wicked with unquenchable fire.” As I pondered what this would look like, I realized that “remaining in existence” is the ultimate goal, and “suffering patiently” helps to reach that goal. When the Savior comes, can I withstand the consuming fire like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego?
A vain king commanded his guards to thrust Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego into a fiery furnace. The raging flame killed the guards, fulfilling the king’s command. Yet Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego walked around the furnace, communing with the Lord.
Jesus Christ promises His disciples that He will preserve and protect them, too—according to His own will, timing, and way.
Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.
These “endure to the end and live.”
Grand Blanc, Michigan
This image of spiritually surviving this refiner’s fire sprang to life as I watched The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint’s chapel in Grand Blanc, Michigan, burn after the tragic mass shooting of its worshipping members.
Anthony and I watched every available video footage we could find. We listened to interviews. I cried as I listened to stories of fathers rushing to find their children, and ladies hurrying infirm friends out of the building. I wanted to hear about the experience from their mouths. What did they witness? How would they respond?
I’ve followed my cousin’s friend, Becca Wilson Jones’s, Facebook account since the Michigan tragedy. She provided my first glimpse into a Michigander’s response. Becca posted something Sunday night that depicted so well a Christ-centered, gospel-centered approach to fiery furnaces. Her post spoke to our choice of how to face the juxtaposition we face in these tragedies and in life. On Sunday night, Becca posted,
I tell my children often, and today they told me: When something goes wrong, first we cry. Then we get up and get to work.
Today we cried. Tomorrow we work.”
They are enduring to the end.
For some victims of the Michigan tragedy, enduring to the end meant professing Jesus Christ as Lord as the shooter gunned them down. For some, enduring to the end meant helping others as the fire engulfed them. Those left behind endure in the Lord’s promise that “there is a time appointed for every man” and “that those that die in me shall not taste of death, for it shall be sweet unto them.”
Like Abinadi, martyred by fire for his faith, these dear ones can cry out to Him,
O God, receive my soul.
And now, when Abinadi had said these words, he fell, having suffered death by fire; yea, having been put to death because he would not deny the commandments of God, having sealed the truth of his words by his death.
This enduring to the end is not passive. It shows a complete, whole-hearted, active trust in the Lord’s will and grace and plan. This ability to sacrifice oneself wholly to God is true consecration.
“The submission of one’s will,” taught Elder Neal A. Maxwell, “is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God’s altar. . . . [W]hen you and I finally submit ourselves, by letting our individual wills be swallowed up in God’s will, then we are really giving something to Him! It is the only possession which is truly ours to give!
Consecration thus constitutes the only unconditional surrender which is also a total victory!”
Enduring to the end is the victory of consecration.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego displayed the victory of consecration, too. They told the king they knew God could deliver them from the burning fiery furnace and out of the hand of the king,
But if not. . . .
If it wasn’t the Lord’s will to deliver them, for them to perish in the flame, they would not bow to the king or his idol. They would not forsake their covenants. They would not deny their faith.
They would endure to the end, come what may.
I see this same strength and determination in every person I’ve seen speak or post about their experience at the chapel. The daughter of Craig Hayden, who was shot while kneeling next to her, wrote of her experience. Her sister-in-law urged everyone to share it:
When [the shooter] came over to me I felt very calm, peaceful even as I kneeled next to my dad, my hands still on dad. It felt like a long time I stared into his eyes while answering his question. The only way I can describe it is I saw into his soul. I never took my eyes off his eyes, something happened, I saw pain, he felt lost. I deeply felt it with every fiber of my being. I forgave him, I forgave him right there, not in words, but with my heart.
Her fearless love matters.
Enduring to the end is the victory of charity and peacemaking.
This image of the ubiquitous chapel Welcome Visitors plaque depicts both definitions of enduring to the end. It lasted, it remained. And its ardent, important message, surrounded by charred scars, is the perfect visual of suffering patiently.
May “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding” be with our brothers and sisters in Grand Blanc, Michigan, whose lives have testified of the Giver of that peace, and may it spread to every heart through all the world.
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