And when I think of patient endurance for a lifetime, I think of the wilderness and 40 years of wandering in it. Moses and the Jewish nation endured this – why? Well, we know that at first, they failed to obey God and take the new land. They chickened out. But the wandering wasn’t punishment, it was purposeful:

“And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.”

“who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do you good in the end—” (Deut 8:2,16)