A Peculiar Kind of Striving

"The form of endurance has a peculiar energy: We put out great effort to endure to the end, but we do it in a peculiar way, namely, in the strength that God supplies. Paul said it like this in Philippians 2:12-13, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." We work and we tremble at the magnitude of what is at stake in our endurance and what great obstacles there are in ourselves and in the world and in the devil. But we do not tremble with the anxiety of the abandoned. We are not abandoned. In all our striving, there is a deep restfulness of confidence, for we are striving not in our strength but God's."

~John Piper, The Roots of Endurance