There is an oil and gas company named Southwestern Energy; they have a company value that is expressed as a formula, which I have long been a fan of. Their formula is (R^2/A)=V+, or “The Right People doing the Right Things® wisely investing the cash flow from the underlying Assets Will create Value+” (R^2 should be read as “R Squared”). Formulas make sense to me, at least algebraic ones. In a philosophical sense, they let me break down concepts into smaller parts that I can recombine as a plan.

Romans 5:3-4 says “And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope.” (emphasis mine).

I can break this down into three formulas.
Affliction ? x = Endurance
Endurance ? x = Proven Character
Proven Character ? x = Hope
Now, I “solve for x” and figure out the operators (plus, minus, times, divide, etc).

Endurance

Affliction plus “something” equals Endurance? Affliction minus “something” equals Endurance? Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines Endurance as “the ability to withstand hardship or adversity, especially: the ability to sustain a prolonged stressful effort or activity” and calls out the qualities of “permanence” and “duration”. When we think of endurance we usually think “how long someone lasts at something”. When I ran track in school I did sprints; running a quarter-mile in less than a minute was fine, running a whole mile in less than eight minutes (the smallest “endurance run”) was very difficult for me. So, the key component to endurance is time! Affliction, for a duration of Time, results in Endurance. Or, in other words, Affliction over Time equals Endurance: Affliction / Time = Endurance | A/T=E (I use “|” to mean “OR” a lot; it is, after all, called an “or pipe” – but let’s not get into “|” vs “||” here, okay?).

Now, you might say to me, “Kyle, quite the eisegesis, there is no mention of time here.” I think it is very easy to see in the meaning of the words, as explained above, that I am not reading my own interpretation into the text, but am using the words provided to understand how we get from Affliction to Hope, because Affliction = Endurance = Proven Character = Hope is not right, none of those four things equals the other without some augmentation.

Proven Character

Okay, now for the formula for “Proven Character”. What proves character? How you act when something happens. How you act when no one is looking. If you act the same way time and time again. If you act the same way even when a cost comes with it. These are all good things that prove character. I think we’ll use all of them. If you are facing affliction, how you act shows your character. But if you only face that affliction once then maybe you had a bad day or white-knuckled your way through it – we cannot be sure of your (or our own) character with just one event. To have the opportunity to establish character, to prove we have endurance through affliction, we must suffer affliction multiple times and exhibit endurance through the affliction multiple times. I do not think anyone needs to suffer needlessly.  If there is a way out of affliction without breaking God’s commands, violating our conscience, or being immoral, then do that!  But, there are times when we suffer and the only “way out” is “through” the affliction.  I think this is the type of situation Paul is talking about in Romans 5:3-4. So, Endurance after Endurance, again and again can be represented as “Endurance^n = Proven Character”, where “n” is equal to whatever (a variable) number of times that we endure.

Hope

How do we get from Proven Character to Hope though? Faith. We have to believe something, everybody does. Maybe you believe in yourself, your own abilities, resources, and strength. Maybe you put your faith in family and friends, the government, or the universe. Whatever it is, the way you “get through” tough times, the person, feeling, thought, entity that you rely on when you don’t know how you’re going to “endure affliction, again” – that is the thing you have faith in. If there isn’t one, and you “give up” then maybe your faith is in the idea that “it doesn’t matter”… Apathy is a weird kind of comforter, but that’s a post for another day.

I am going to borrow from “Explore the Bible, Personal Study Guide” for “Hebrews” from “LifeWay” a little to talk about hope. While discussing Hebrews 11:1 it says:
“Having ultimate faith in ourselves will not give us what we need to go the distance in life. Placing too much faith in others eventually leads to disappointment too. So does putting faith in faith itself. A person who puts faith in faith is really trusting in self…. Positive thinking can be helpful to a degree, but it has not power to give us what we need most in life.”

The Greek word translated as “hope” in Romans 5:4 is elpida (well, it is ἐλπίδα, but we’ll say elpida). The Hebrew word for hope is “tikvah”. Both words convey something much more sure than how we in modern America use the word “hope”. When someone says “I hope this.” or “I hope that.” that are usually expressing some want or desire, maybe even getting close to wistfulness. It is almost like saying “I wish this.” or “I wish for that.”. But the Hebrew and Greek words have a much more confident meaning. Here hope is more like the feeling you have toward a chair you sit down in without thinking twice about. The chair looks sturdy ,it has held you every time before with no issue, you have no reason to distrust the chair – you have faith that the chair will hold you; even if subconscious, you still have that faith. That’s how ingrained our faith in God should be, so base-level that it is “a given”.

Proven Character, paired with Faith, means that we have Hope. Proven Character + Faith = Hope

Adding it All Up

Affliction / Time = Endurance | Affliction over time produces Endurance
Endurance^n = Proven Character | Endurance again and again results in Proven Character
Proven Character + Faith = Hope | Proven Character with Faith gives us Hope

We can combine these formulas to express the idea that “Affliction over time, multiple times, with Faith, produces Hope”: (Affliction / Time)^n + Faith = Hope

Is the formula necessary? No. Could you argue a flaw in some part of my development of it? Probably. But can it still be helpful? Yes. It is helpful to me to remember that when I am facing hardship (again?!) I need to have faith in God and endure the hardship; in Him I can have hope. This formula is a nice, simple reminder of the truth Paul wrote to the church in Rome nearly 2,000 years ago.

(A/T)^n+F=H

PS – I am a Calvin & Hobbes fan. When I think of building character, several strips come to mind. My favorite is this one: