Patience

2 Peter 3:15 NIV

 Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation…

What Is It You Really Need?

There is one day that every parent dreads from the moment a child is born.  It is more feared than the first discussion on “the birds and the bees”, produces greater anxiety than the anticipation of going into debt to pay for college tuition and makes parents cringe more than the start of music lessons.  It is that first day a parent starts teaching her child how to drive.  It is then that all those times when you caused your parent grief comes back to haunt you.  One friend of mine told me that her sister took her out to learn how to drive using her mom’s car without permission before she got a permit and she sideswiped a telephone pole and broke off the mirror.  They quietly returned the car to its parking spot and it took them thirty years before they had the courage to tell their mom what they did.  My dad broke into a sweat the day he taught me how to drive and his face was white as a sheet when we got finished.  The parent who patiently endures this traumatizing day of reckoning is superhuman.  You find out quickly just what sort of placidity you actually have when you sit in the passenger seat the first time your teenager pulls out of the driveway and careens off into traffic.  I am certain even the Buddha screamed “watch out!” the first time he took his daughter driving.

On a scale of 1-10, what level of patience do you maintain when you are driving…when you are cooking for your mother-in-law…when someone makes you late…when your children start fighting…when your family members leave the dishes in the sink for you to wash…when you spend an hour teaching a co-worker how to do something and you realize she hasn’t paid attention to you…when the sales clerk forgets to put in your bag the one item you went to the store to get…when the person sitting next to you on the metro sneezes in your face…when you lose your keys…when your sister loses your keys…when someone eats the food you saved in the refrigerator for lunch…  Do others see you as patient or easily perturbed?  Is patience one of your strengths or a weakness of yours? 

The New Testament of the Bible insists on patience as a critical component of a healthy personality.  Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. (Colossians 3:12 NIV)  Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. (Ephesians 4:2 NIV)  In the Old Testament, patience is the sign of one having wisdom.  A patient man has great understanding, but a quick-tempered man displays folly. (Proverbs 14:29 NIV)  The first characteristic of love is patience.  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. (1 Corinthians 13:4 NIV)

Patience does not stand alone as a virtue though.  It requires resistance; a force acting against it to bring it to life.  To know you have patience, you must face something trying, something that pushes you.  Patience does not come into existence until it goes up against an adversary.  When you are humiliated or ignored or mistreated or disappointed or kept from asserting your will then there can be patience but otherwise it is just an idea, a concept or an idealization grounded in myth.  You can say you are patient but until you “come up against it”, you don’t really know.

The ancient account of Job and his troubles is a classic example of someone who really did come up against it.  What makes the documentation of his personal experience so crucial for our study of patience is the clear delineation of what we all face in a world dominated by spiritual forces that are too often ignored or discounted.  The Bible insists that there is a literal spiritual being that has great power in this universe.  Satan is not a metaphor for evil; Satan is the force behind evil.  What we learn from the documentation found in Job is that Satan has access to God and can go to Him and ask permission to try and wreck people.  In Job’s case, Satan was given permission to attack Job physically and psychologically.  Satan killed Job’s children, ruined him financially and then made him endure terrible sores that were painful and debilitating.  The terrible suffering of Job continued until God finally put a halt to it.

There is no patience without suffering of some sort, whether it is psychological or physical.  Some suffering we bring on ourselves but clearly there is suffering that Satan has been given permission to inflict on us.  When that suffering hits us, we can either be patient or not. It is up to us.  Do we think the same sort of activity is happening today as it did in Job’s case?  Of course it is.  Satan is making life hard on us, putting us in situations that make it painful and distressing.  But we can stand up against them with patience.  Patience is the capacity to weather the storm, to be bent under the force of the wind but not broken by it.  The New Testament term translated patience is literally “long soul” or “long to passion”.  In other words, one who is patient does not let the passions take over the personality.  Wisdom remains in control.

There are two levels of patience.  The first is just what you can deal with in your own strength.  Some have more patience than others because of the experiences they have had, the role models they emulate and just the basic make-up of how they are put together.  There is a limit though to the patience any of us have and when Satan pushes us too far, we fall apart.  We get angry, we become depressed, we isolate ourselves, we use alcohol or drugs to mask the pain, we strike out in revenge, we engage in sexual immorality or perversion, we abandon our careers, those who love us and/or the faith we once had.  When our patience is shattered, we come apart in some way that hurts us or others.

The Bible tells us that one of the psychological benefits of having God a part of you is that He produces in you patience.  But the fruit of the Spirit is … patience... (Galatians 5:22-23 NIV)  This means there is a certain level of patience that only God can produce; different than what you will ever naturally possess.  It is supernatural patience that belongs to God that you can have.  His patience, which is available to you is the same patience that enabled Him to endure the Cross without lashing out at those mocking Him, that allowed Him to speak kindly to the thief on the cross who had before ridiculed Him, the same patience that upheld Him when He faced His death.

Only the Holy Spirit can give you God’s patience so that you aren’t rattled by the sorts of things that shatter the best of human beings.  I once had a friend who was wrecked by the fire that ruined her house and she took out her anger on her husband.  Her anger destroyed his affection for her and he left his wife for another woman.  Some things are just too big for you and only God can see you through them.  Go to Christ right now if you wish and ask Him to anoint you with the Holy Spirit.  He will pour His patience into you if you give yourself over to Him.  The great storms will not overwhelm you; the earth shattering quakes that topple others will not make you fall.  When Christ died to take your sin from you, He said that you could have the Holy Spirit as a part of you.  When our Lord bought you out of your slavery to sin and the forces of evil in this world, He did so that you would not be alone to face all this.  He comes to you now.  Invite Him to join you.  Ask for the Holy Spirit to make His home in you.  Have God’s patience; let the strength of His personality get you through every trial and difficulty you face both today…and tomorrow.

What Is This?

"Son of man, with one blow I am about to take away from you the delight of your eyes. Yet do not lament or weep or shed any tears.”

Ezekiel 24:16 NIV

Is Your Life Going Smoothly?

Perhaps you have had a day like this.  I got mad at my kids.  I was late to work.  I argued with my wife.  I had a headache.  I got grease on my dress shirt and it was too late to change it.  Someone cut in front of me on the freeway.  I was frustrated by my job performance.  Did I mention that I had a headache?  For someone without food or water living in war ravaged Somalia this probably would have been considered a great day.  I did not see it that way though and I admit that I complained to God about my circumstances.   I read recently about the acorn woodpecker which beats a hole with its beak into wood posts and then carefully stuffs an acorn in it.  Later, the woodpecker returns for a tasty snack.  However, sometimes squirrels climb up the posts and snatch the acorns and feast on them before the woodpecker gets back to it for a winter snack.  That is a bad day for the woodpecker when it discovers the thievery and no acorn to quiet the rumbling in its belly.  I could imagine it squawking up to the heavens in frustration.

What do you consider a bad day?  We all have them…or at least we think we do.  No one else decides for you if your day is going well or poorly.  You are the judge of that.  Sometimes you may wonder why so much trouble comes your way.  What did you do to “deserve” what you have faced?  Is it karma, bad luck or some punishment from God?   What sort of God lets such trouble afflict good people like you?

One of the most enigmatic moments described in Scripture is the time God told his beloved spokesman Ezekiel that he was going to lose his wife.  The word of the Lord came to me: "Son of man, with one blow I am about to take away from you the delight of your eyes. Yet do not lament or weep or shed any tears.  (Ezekiel 24:15-16 NIV)  Try to explain this demand of God’s and the action He took and you most likely will be stumped.  Justify this to your nonreligious friends and you won’t have a receptive audience.  We know of course that this stoic response to his wife’s death was to be a sign to the Israelites living in Babylon that they were not to weep or complain when God let the Babylonian army destroy Jerusalem.  It was divine judgment upon a wicked and arrogant people who were murderous and corrupt.  Yet, does that make it any easier for Ezekiel who lost the “delight” of his eyes?  It was not like Ezekiel was tired of marriage and coldly indifferent to the fate of his wife.  She was his beloved, someone he adored.

No one is immune to devastating losses and tremendous hardships.  As Jesus Himself noted, “He (the Father) causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.“ (Matthew 5:45 NIV)  We are told in Scripture that every person who has been born again is going through a transformation process on this side of heaven.  Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. (2 Corinthians 4:16-17 NIV)  What you and I call the trials of life or maybe even more correctly, the unfair hardships of life, God calls the normal transformation process all Christians experience as He reworks them.  Consider it the universal maturation experience worked out in us by the Father.   It is spiritual aging as it were, normal and to be expected.  We look at these problems and hardships as terrible or dreadful; God sees them as the means by which He peels away layers of sin wrecked and contaminated parts of our personality.  Like an onion, our Lord uses troubles and even pain to strip away from you the scales that are no longer useful or helpful to living in Christ forever.

The last part of the book of Acts gives the account of the terrifying storm the Apostle Paul endured while being transported by sailing ship to Rome to face trial in front of Caesar.  Not only was he being unjustly imprisoned for crimes he did not commit, he also had to suffer near starvation conditions and drenching rain for two weeks as a raging tempest pounded the vessel.  It was not fair and certainly unwanted but Paul had to go through it anyway.  In 2 Corinthians Paul listed the experience as one of the many horrific miseries of his life after he became a Christian.  The truth is that being in the terrifying storm and then shipwrecked was perhaps one of the less painful distresses he faced.  Yet this is what Paul thought of all the troubles he had.  That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10 NIV)

Who would consider it natural or normal to think of suffering as something good and beneficial?  We do our best to avoid it and certainly don’t look forward to it.  The Bible never encourages Christians to look for opportunities to suffer.  There is no masochistic theology within Scripture; only a realistic understanding of what suffering accomplishes.  I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.  The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.  For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.  (Romans 8:18-21 NIV)

It is not just you that is frustrated by your suffering; all of creation is frustrated.  Perhaps you have not thought of eagles or redwood trees or mountain ranges as frustrated with what they face but there is in the universe a ubiquitous groaning as it were, a straining in trial that is comparable to childbirth.  What mother looks forward to the searing pain as her baby prepares to leave her body?  Have you known any smiling as they go through the final moments of birthing a child?  Yet each and every contraction is a movement toward joy.  Would a woman consider her newborn a punishment?  Perhaps some in the most trying and horrific of circumstances might but in a normal delivery, the strain of the mother is cause for hope and coming happiness.  What is God doing in you when you go through the normal suffering and troubles of life?  He is birthing a new you.

At this point we shall speak of something that is much too profound and mystical to have any sort of depth in discussing.  Let us admit that we are entering at a point in Scripture that is beyond our knowledge base but must be given great thought.  In Hebrews comes this magnificent declaration.  During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.  Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 5:7-9 NIV)

Suffering made Jesus a better man.  It completed Him as God’s perfect sacrifice for Sin.  Something was missing in Him that only suffering could produce.  If Jesus needed suffering to put in Him some part of His personality that would make Him “perfect”, how much more so is suffering a requirement for us to be complete as God’s children.  Try and think of the best people in Scripture who we have an abundance of data to study that did not suffer.  James and Peter and the mother of Jesus and before them to Joseph, Jacob, Abraham, Ruth and Sarah all suffered great sorrow and hardship.  Suffering is the transformative catalyst God uses to put in perfect order the Christian personality.  It is like sunlight for a plant or yeast in bread.   It is how God instills holiness and goodness in His people.  You must suffer for the strength of God to be built in you.

Consider any of the great leaders of American history and you will find they all suffered horrific pain or sorrow.  Whether you look into the life of George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King, suffering built the character of each of them.  Just think of Moses who many call the “Savior of the Jewish people.”  He failed miserably at his first attempt to lead his people out of slavery.  He was mocked and despised by them and then spent forty years in the blazing sun of the Middle Eastern desert before God was ready to make him his leader of Israel.  How many years did Moses question the goodness of God and wonder why his life was so wrecked?  Yet in it all, in those thousands of hours baking in the wasteland the Lord was watching over him and putting in Moses the humility and patience he would need to be the perfect servant God wanted to carry out His work.

What about you?  What sort of trouble and pain are you going through now?  What kind of desert are you in at this moment?  It is not wasted, this time of waiting and enduring.  God is perfecting you. Making you the kind of person He can use for the most important matters on His agenda.  Bread must be broken before it can be eaten and grapes must be crushed before they produce juice.  Your life is broken bread for others to consume.  The patience you acquire and the humility that is built in you are critical for some who God will and is putting in your life.  Remember this.  You are not and never have been your own.  You belong to God and He must make you in such a way that your life will feed others and provide them with nourishment to be perfect.  Someone is watching you and needs the strength your suffering and sorrow has generated.  It is up to you what you will make of the trouble you have faced and how you will respond to God’s work in you through them.  Will you be bitter vinegar that must be spit away or sweet juice that brings joy to those who drink from it?