The other night, I was cooking dinner while the kids were watching The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Popcorn everywhere. Kids half-paying attention, until the training montage started.

Mario is trying to become strong enough to face Bowser, and suddenly the music kicks in. He’s running obstacle courses. Getting launched off platforms. Missing jumps. Slamming into walls. Falling…again and again. He’s exhausted, frustrated, and clearly outmatched.

But he keeps going.

What struck me wasn’t how fast he improved. It was how often he failed and still climbed back up the pipe to try again. Same jumps. Same course. Same struggle, just repeated with stubborn determination.

And like every good training montage, it’s over quickly. A few minutes later, Mario is transformed. Ready. Capable. Prepared.

That’s the part we love.

We wish becoming who we’re meant to be worked that way.

We wish growth came with a soundtrack.

We wish perseverance had a clear beginning and end.

We wish the hardest parts of our lives could be compressed into a short season we push through and leave behind.

But real life doesn’t offer montages.

There is no quick cut from weakness to strength. No music swelling while we quietly endure. No clear moment where training ends and life begins.

Becoming takes a lifetime.

Dallas Willard once wrote, “Your life is the person you are becoming.” That line tells the truth we often want to avoid. Life isn’t mainly about achievement or arrival—it’s about formation. About who we are shaped into over time through trial, discipline, failure, and faithfulness.

Still, the montage gets one thing right.

Perseverance.

Mario doesn’t succeed because he’s naturally gifted. He succeeds because he keeps showing up. He keeps running the course. He keeps getting back up after falling short—literally.

That’s the transferable lesson.

Perseverance through difficulty produces character.

Character, over time, produces hope.

Not a fragile hope that depends on circumstances going our way—but a steady hope that has been tested and refined. A hope that knows pain, disappointment, and delay, yet refuses to quit.

And when your hope is rooted in the right source—not in speed, success, or ease—you become remarkably resilient.

Not untouched by hardship.

Not immune to suffering.

But unshaken at the core.

You keep moving forward.

You keep becoming.

There may be no montage for the life you’re living right now. No clear marker that says, training complete. But every small act of perseverance—every attempt, every failure, every decision to try again—is shaping you into the person you are meant to be.

And over a lifetime, that kind of perseverance doesn’t just prepare you for the next battle.

It forms you into someone capable of carrying the life you’ve been given.

One step.

One repetition.

One faithful return to the course.