PATIENCE Sermons
For those who preached on patience recently, or will preach on it soon, please post your sermons in the comments section here.
posted by Jeff Christian @ 12:05 PM
6 comments
For those who preached on patience recently, or will preach on it soon, please post your sermons in the comments section here.
posted by Jeff Christian @ 12:05 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Cultivating Patience – Life on the Vine
Sunday, October 2, 2005 Southeast
Can anyone tell me what time it is?
How many of you, right in this moment could tell me what time it is? Raise your hands.
You would be one strange American if you were not time conscious. That does not mean, of course, that you are ‘on time.’
It could mean that you are so bent on productivity (or busyness which may or may not be genuinely productive) that you are consistently late. We are, most of us, schedulers.
How do you respond to unexpected delays? Traffic? Some of you have been in a traffic jam recently. They will be traffic jams of a life-time. You will tell these stories in the years to come. How do you feel in the midst of the delay? Maybe it is worse when the pressure is on, when the storm is approaching, when there is a task waiting for you. “I’m late, I’m late, I’m late. For a very important date.” Says the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland.
In restaurants? We went to Gringo’s on Monday. They were Saturday busy. They told us that it would be 30 to 45 minutes to get a table. Seventy-five minutes later we got to sit down. Do you get anxious in the waiting?
When worship runs over? We work hard to be on time around here. However, there are times when we don’t hit the mark. I get anxious when it goes long. I know that Karis gets anxious when we run long. Do you? Why do we respond that way?
My suggestion is that it is a matter of control. We have things to do. Time is precious because we have things to do, and we have surrendered the control of our circumstances. We don’t like it.
Have you ever been a patient?
Have you been in the hospital? How would you respond to this statement:
One of the greatest challenges of being a patient is the surrendering of control to another.
We have been thinking about letting God have His way with our lives. Specifically, we have been thinking about bearing the fruit of God’s Holy Spirit in our lives.
We thought about love, a love like God’s, who loves damaged goods.
We thought about joy, and the fact that we are doing battle with our desires. We want. And our joy is stolen.
Last week, for the select crowd that was present, we encouraged one another to peace. The call is to fearlessness and wholeness. Remember your baptism. You died. And you live. It is political and radical.
This morning, for a few minutes we want to consider the cultivation of patience.
Patience is rooted in the Character of God.
Do you think there is any way that God surrenders control?
Does God let human beings make choices? I was talking with a man about serving as an elder. He had chosen not to serve because he had a rebellious child. I reminded him that God also has rebellious children, and that did not disqualify God.
God is patient.
Exodus 34:6 (NRSV)
6 The LORD passed before him, and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness7 keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin…”
Do you think this can be characterized as a surrender of control? Does God seem to you to be in a hurry?
Let’s consider these two passages of Scripture.
Romans 8:22-25 (NRSV)
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
James 5:7-11 (NRSV)
7 Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. 8 You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. 9 Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! 10 As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 Indeed we call blessed those who showed endurance. You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
“The connection between peace and patience should now be evident. Patience is a necessary prerequisite for establishing peace. One’s willingness to be wronged, to absorb evil patiently without retaliating, helps to break the cycle of vengeance and opens up the possibility for healing and peace.” (Kenneson, 112) (See 1 Cor. 6:7)
God is patient with us, don’t you think?
Could we absorb evil patiently, without retaliating?
Could we forgive seventy times seven times (Matt 18:21-22)?
Only by patiently forgiving one another do we have any hope of being that community which God has called us to be.
Ephesians 4:1-3 (NRSV)
1 I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Obstacles to a Life of Patience
1. The clock. Any idea how we got the clock? Benedictine monks who were trying to regulate their daily prayers (Matins, Vespers, Compline) invented the mechanical clock. With the advent of the clock, time became more easily recognized as a resource that could be managed, scheduled. Have you been in a place where there were no clocks, no televisions, no radio (and you chose not to wear a watch)? How would you regulate your world?
a. Make some space to get off the clock. (God called it Sabbath!)
b. Could you take a day where you don’t care what time it is?
c. Simplify your schedule.
d. Let go of the business (Busyness). Learn to say, “I am sorry, I cannot do that (commit to that, schedule that, participate in that). And then release the guilt of not doing.
2. Hording Time. Do you ever think of the time of the day as something that is a personal resource? Is the time yours? Time is money and if someone is wasting your time, they are wasting your productivity, your ability to accomplish your goals. Notice that we spend time, buy time, save time, waste time, invest time. Time is violently grasped, rather than spent as a luxurious gift. People are not an interruption of the gift.
a. Can we really expect to be patient with people as long as we believe that time is our own?
b. God has time. God works at his own pace. We could learn to trust that God’s pace is okay with us.
c. I am not my own. All my time belongs to God.
3. Exalting Productivity. I find this to be inescapable. I find it difficult to go home when I have not felt particularly productive. When I have not accomplished quantifiable results, I am ill at ease (and that could be impatience) -- mentoring at the middle school is a recent example. I can’t see that my conversations for thirty minutes a week with my young sixth grader has great utility. It is an interruption of my time!
a. Those things that we can measure are those things we ascribe a value. In our culture we rarely exalt the stay at home mom. They do not collect a pay check for their time spent. It must not have value. If she was a lawyer, then that is significant. If she is a home-maker, then that is quaint.
b. We make trades for time…spending money on food that does not take time to prepare.
c. “Being patient often feels like weakness, if not death.” (119)
d. Is worship suspiciously unproductive? Do we evaluate our Sunday time by its productivity? Is worship supposed to be productive? You spent time at church. Was it wasted time?
e. “How can we joyfully engage in worship if we are continually mindful of all the other more productive things we could be doing with our time (and will be doing once this service is over)?” (119)
f. Is spending time with each other productive? Do we have time?
4. Going Faster. Why are you in such a hurry? If you have a lot of time saving devices in your office, or in your home, what do you do with the time you saved? (Being more productive, I am sure.)
a. When I was baptized, I resented being a babe. However, fruit does not grow over night. “Cultivating a life in the Spirit is slow painstaking work” (122). I would like to be perfect NOW. Instant Christianity would be way cool.
b. Are destinations always more important than the journey? How much of my life has been spent speeding toward something. I think I will probably wake up having passed over the main idea.
c. Fastest way to rule? Dictatorship is very efficient. Democracy is somewhat efficient. Consensus is very slow. Prayerful communities of discernment are time consuming. What if God cares about not only the decisions that we make, but the kind of people we become in the process of making them?
What if you set aside some time in the morning to give yourself to God first?
How can you unbusy your schedule? Are there some goals you can sacrifice?
Would you be willing to give your time back to God, and allow for the interruptions?
Can you make some choices to do some of the things you do in an old fashion, slow way, and celebrate the joy of the doing?
Could we come to worship and leave our time consciousness behind? We are done, when we are done.
Can we be patient with one another’s weakness? Could we even be patient with baptism, recognizing that becoming a Christian is not an instantaneous process (before nor after baptism)?
Can you be patient with you?
God is patient with you.
Patience. Not a word we like to hear. Oh, sure, we love to hear it when we are the recipient of patience. Just be patient with me… Don’t lose your patience… But when we are the giver of patience it feels like a dirty word. Of all the virtues listed as the fruit of God’s Spirit, this one may ask the most of us.
Patience.
I have said this of other topics, this one certainly being no exception: I’m either the most qualified person to preach on patience, or the least qualified. If I’m the most qualified, it’s because I can tell you what patience is not. If I’m the least qualified, it’s because I am not a patient person. My relationship with patience is like Mark Twain’s relationship with smoking who said quitting smoking was the easiest thing he had ever done. In fact, he had quit smoking over 10,000 times.
I suppose that all of these virtues are so big that one sermon will never do them justice. So in interest of not trying to spread the sermon too thin, let’s just take one angle today, the angle that is probably so dangerously autobiographical that it will not resonate with some of you, but one of those angles that Scripture seems to give great attention.
I have mentioned before that eight of the nine virtues we call the fruit of the Spirit of God are descriptors of God in the Bible. God is a patient God, which is where we must begin. How much can we learn from God, from the deep character of God: “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” (Psalm 103:8)
That’s a long way of saying “God is patient.” It further defines how we must be patient by adding to our list of virtues. To be patient as God is patient is to be merciful, gracious—how are you doing on those?—slow to anger—how’s that going?—abounding in an ongoing, constant love. After all, Paul’s poem in 1 Corinthians 13 begins, “Love is patient.”
But some things get in the way of patience, do they not. The clock gets in the way. It seems that the one thing that gets in the way of patience, especially for us type A personalities, it has to be time. We feel time ticking away, slipping through our fingers. We see people wasting time and it hurts our stomachs. When people are late we just want to call down the curses of heaven, at least I do, which again is why I should not be the one preaching on patience. Maybe that’s why “patience” sounds like such a dirty word.
Moreover, productivity is everything in American culture. We measure everything by practicality, usefulness, and ability to function. We are happy to spend time with people if it means getting something done. It is more difficult in today’s society to just sit and visit. And so we go to “lunch meetings” and “dinner seminars.”
Add to that an aspect of our culture obsessed with instant gratification. How do you feel when you have to wait?
And you know the chant: What do we want? Fill in the blank. When do we want it? NOW!
Maybe this is why the Christian story seems to make less and less sense in today’s culture. Our story is one that is slow-building. It takes time. Salvation is not a moment, it’s a process. Baptism is not an act, it’s a beginning. The Lord’s Table is not a fix you get before you leave the building for the week, it is a story you enter about God gathering all of creation to Himself. And, what if the Table is more than a vertical activity between you and God, but an act of communion with one another whereby we commit to be patient with one another as we all long for God together?
In keeping with all of this, what’s the point today? What is the one angle we might take in approaching this virtue of patience? What is the Word from the Lord we need to hear, and how might we live this Word as we extend the very patience to one another that God extends to us? For after all, God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and overflowing with an unquenchable love.
So here is your Word from God today. And you’re not going to like it; but read it anyway.
James 1:19-20 and 3:9-18
To practice peace with one another will then mean to be patient with one another, to cultivate the patience that God offers us with His salvation we know through His Son Jesus. Are not the Gospel stories stories of God’s patience with us seen in Jesus?
And then, unless this becomes too much about us, there is a much bigger picture than just our lives. Too much is at stake to not consider what true patience is about, which is enduring this world confident in God’s mercy.
James 5:7-11
How can we cultivate patience:
1) Think about some times recently when you found yourself impatient. How much of that was due to your understanding of time over people? Could your impatience and frustration have been rooted in your belief that your time was your own? Is it possible to refigure some of our language where we can speak of time in ways other than a commodity to be spent or wasted? Can we talk about “devoting” our time to someone else, rather than “investing” time in someone where we might expect something in return?
2) Find someone willing to hold you accountable if you struggle with this fruit of patience, and how together you might seek the character of God as it affects those around you.
3) Every time you feel the urge this week to shoot off your mouth, stop and count to ten.
And if you take this seriously, and if patience is something you struggle with, may the blessing of Numbers 6 again be a comfort that you might hear, that God will not turn His face from you, but that He may turn His face toward you, and give you peace.
And if you have trouble carrying out these virtues that make up the fruit of the Spirit of God, don’t worry, I’m told it takes time. Just be patient.
Amen.
Patience
Just a little patience
Jeremy Loy
Lueders Church of Christ
September 25, 2005
If this week’s sermon were a test I would fail. Patience. I don’t know how to develop this virtue. I don’t know what it means to be patient.
This week I went to the Laundry mat in Abilene. I have no patience for the laundry mat. I just want to wash my clothes as quickly at possible and get out of there. But that is usually not possible. I have to be patient. This week I especially needed to be patient, but was not. Many of the washers and dryers at this laundry mat are out of order. For example one row of nine washers had four out of order signs. This cannot be good for business. So, I filled a “working” washer with my towels and sheets. I put detergent in, closed the lid and began to pop my quarters in the machine. Much to my dismay or my lack of patience, this machine did not work. So, I had to pull my clothes out of the washer and put them into another (hopefully) working washer. Then I put my next load of towels and sheets in (yes, it’s been awhile), only to have the same thing happen again. Patience. I don’t know how to develop this virtue. I don’t know what it means to be patient.
But my lack of patience development doesn’t just exist in small things like non-patient trips to the laundry mat. My lack of patience is evident in my current job search. By all accounts, I should have a full-time ministry job by now. I’ve been looking for a year. I have a Master’s degree, good references, awards, experience (sort of), dedication, dependability, etc. etc. I really should have a job by now. I’m the only one in the last year who doesn’t have a job yet and what patience I do possess is running thin. Patience. I don’t know how to develop this virtue. I don’t know what it means to be patient.
But it’s no wonder I don’t have patience. I live in world that uses and abuses time. I live in a fast food world. I live in a world of email, instant messaging, cell phones, news all day, instant access, instant coverage, and portable devices so we can have what we need when we want it.
Do we ever have to wait on anything?
Who likes to wait on anything? If there is one virtue my family instilled in me it is the importance of being on time. We live in a culture dominated by the clock. We have to be at work on time. We have to be at church on time. We have to be at our meeting on time or we feel like we are stealing other people’s time. In my family, we were on time so others don’t have to wait on us and “waste” their time.
Living life by the clock often causes others to become objects rather than people. I’m not suggesting we through out our watches, palm pilots, calenders and planners. I am suggesting that our view of time and our abuse of time lead to our impatience. Our culture views time differently than most. Here in the U.S. lateness almost makes the list of the seven deadly sins. In other cultures (even in the U.S.), take time. They slow down and don’t live in the kamikaze pace many of us keep. Time is precious and is not to be taken lightly. Time is a gift. When time is viewed as a gift, maybe we won’t use it so impatiently.
When thinking of time we usually think of “my” time. 8 – 5 is work time, but from 12 –1 is “my” time to eat lunch. I don’t want to give a minute of the sixty away. The evenings are “my” time to unwind and relax. It is my time to do “my” thing. When I think of time as “my” time then other people only become interruptions and not people. Can we be patient with people if they are only seen as interruptions to our time?
There is no doubt we are an impatient society, but what can our faith teach us about patience?
Theology of Patience
What do Christians say about patience? What do we learn from Scripture about patience? What do we learn from God about patience?
We often speak of someone having a “short temper”, but we don’t have a modern equivalent for having a “long temper.” “Long temper,” however, is close to the meaning of the word in Greek that Paul uses in Galatians. Being a patient requires that a person come to terms with yielding control to another. We have to come to grips with being acted upon. The word patience stems from the word “patient” like being a “patient” at the Doctor’s office. In the Middle Ages, anyone suffering patiently was a “patient.” So, being patient or being a patient requires that a person come to terms with yielding control to another. Rather than being the actor, you then become the one acted upon.
Patience has roots in God’s character.
In the OT, God’s slowness to anger represents a willingness to yield control. The passages that talk about God’s patience usually go something like this: “The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love,” (Psalm 103:8). The most frequent picture of God in the OT is of God’s patience. The act of creation demonstrates God’s willingness to yield control. Philip Kenneson says, “By creating that which was other than God, God created a space for the creation to go its own way. This situation is familiar to all parents who, in bringing children into the world, soon recognize that their children are not simply extensions of themselves but distinct beings capable of going their own way. Creation always necessitates a willingness to yield at least a measure of control.”
Further, God doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. God doesn’t coerce us. Instead God waits patiently for us to respond by reaching out to us. God’s love is patient. It does not insist on its own way. This reminds me of what Paul says about love in I Corinthians 13, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”
The NT calls us to be slow to anger with one another just as God is slow to anger. James 1:19-20 says, “My dear children, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for a person’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.” Listening involves handing over control to another.
We are called to be patient, but not for the sake of patience. We are called to be patient for the sake of another. But that’s hard. That’s a challenge in a world that tells us to do everything for the sake of “ourselves.” We have a hard time hearing “others” through a chorus of “me.”
Forgiveness is connected to patience. Forgiveness is unimaginable apart from patience. This is evident in Jesus’ parable of the unmerciful servant. The context of this parable is Peter’s question to Jesus about how many times Peter has to forgive the person who continues to sin against him. Jesus rejects Peter’s suggestion that seven times is enough. Jesus says that doesn’t add up and tells this parable to help Peter and us understand what it means to forgive. In this parable in Matthew 18, a king decides to settle up his accounts with his slaves. One slave owes the king 10 thousand talents (millions of dollars), but cannot pay him. So, the king orders the slave and his family and his possessions to be sold so that the payment can be made. However, the slave falls on his knees and says, “Have patience with me, I will repay you.” Out of pity the king released the slave and forgave him the debt. But the same slave went out and came upon his fellow slaves who owed him one hundred denarii (a few dollars), grabbed him by the throat and demanded repayment. Then the fell slave fell on his knees and said, “Have patience with me, I will repay you.” But he refused and had the other slave thrown in prison until he could pay the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what happened, they went and reported this to the King. The King summoned the slave and said to him, “You wicked slave! I forgave you a million dollars because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?” Jesus ends the parable with this statement, “So my heavenly father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
God breaks down the cycle of vengeance and calls us to do the same. When we patiently forgive one another then we become the kind of community God calls us to be.
Patience is rooted in the character of God. It goes something like this: God is patient with us, therefore we ought to be patient with each other.
I know I don’t have much patience. So, I wondered this week where and how I could get some.
Cultivating Patience
1. Reflect on the times this week that you have grown impatient. How do you think your understanding of time contributes to your impatience? Are there times when you are impatient with people who do not meet your expectations or were not conforming to your timetable? Think about what makes you impatient and why.
2. We are busy people. Try to build slack time into your schedule. I have a problem with this. I like to be “doing” something every minute of the day. If I am not doing “something,” then I feel like I am not being “anything.” I feel like if I am not producing, working, unlocking, reading, studying, being with people, eating, cleaning, or drinking coffee, I am missing out on life. So, it’s a challenge for me to build in slack time into my schedule. But doing nothing is healthy. It makes us stop and get out of rapid fire time abuse. One minister suggests that all ministers began their day by sitting in their office staring out the window. Wow! I don’t think I would ever have the patience to do that, but if I did that then maybe I would have some patience. Slow down. Take some time off. Watch a movie. Read a novel. Watch the sunset. We have some great ones in West TX. Build slack time into your life.
3. Resist doing things in the quickest way possible. Can we deliberately do things slower? We do this at work. We get in “Git-R-Done” mode and we don’t do things well. We do our tasks for the end result. I did this with school. I know I had 500 pages to read and 3 papers to write so I did what I had to do to “finish.” I often didn’t enjoy the journey because I was concerned with time. I lacked the patience to carefully do my studying because I was more worried about getting it done that I was about the journey of learning. So, this week take the long road instead of the short cut. Slow down. Work slower.
4. Hurrying through worship. In America, churches often pride themselves on how fast they finish worship or that they can do the Lord’s Supper in 10 minutes. Churches in cultures that don’t have cars or good transportation often have to wait on others to get there before church can start. Then church can last all day because it takes such effort for the whole church to assemble together. So, maybe we should take our time and not rush through one hour so we can go on with our busy lives. Maybe if we model patience in our worship, then we can began to understand what it means to be a patient people.
5. Finally, be patient with yourself as well as others as you and they seek to grow in the Spirit and bear fruit. This sermon is not intended to instantly make us patient, or more peace-loving, or more joyous, or more loving. It is an invitation to deeper disciples by focusing on developing these virtues. Notice I said, “developing.” It takes time. I liken our faith to a journey rather than a particular stop. It’s hard to think of our faith as a journey when we live in a world that feasts on outcomes and results. But patience and these other virtues take time. Slow down. Take time. Be patient with yourself. Give yourself and others a break. No farmer expects the seedlings to produce ripe and robust fruit in only a few days. This patience embodied by the farmer does not, however, keep that very same farmer from diligently uprooting the weeds that threaten and inhibit good growth. Pray, therefore, for the wisdom to recognize the difference between patience and indulgence.
Patience takes patience.
Have Patience
Terry Seufferlein
Central Church of Christ
How do you feel about [long pause] waiting? Do you enjoy a good wait?
Not me. I don't do waiting well. I don't like it when I call someone and get put on hold. I don't like standing in line at a grocery store or theater. If I go to a restaurant and have to wait very long for a table, I'm out of there.
[Have Patience Continued]
We live in a fast-paced world, and we're always in a hurry. Some have referred to this obsession with speed as hurry sickness. Do you have hurry sickness? Let's find out.
When you come to a stop light, most people will count the number of cars in each lane. But if you have hurry sickness, you find yourself considering the kind of car and driver you're behind. Teenager in a sports car, or a middle aged lady driving a Buick? I'll get behind the sports car.
When you go to the grocery store and it's time to check out, most people will count how many others are in each lane. If you have hurry sickness, you cound how much stuff they have in their carts. If you have a serious case, you also know which checkers are faster, and which take their time. Then there's the mother who confessed to me this week that she puts one child in each line, and then gets in line based on who gets to the checker first.
[Have patience continued]
I found a wonderful book this week: In Praise of Slowness, by Carl Honore. Honore talks about the development of time consciousness in the western world.
"This book is not a declaration of war against speed. Speed has helped to remake our world in ways that are wonderful and liberating. Who wants to live without the internet or jet travel? The problem is our love of speed, our obsession with doing more and more in less and less time, has gone too far; it has turned into an addiction, a kind of idolatry."
I find this particularly interesting since he's not a Christian author. But he recognizes this need for speed has become a kind of idolatry.
What's the first thing you do every morning? Before you open the curtains, before you brush your teeth? You look at the clock. And that determines what happens next. If it's early, you roll back over for some more sleep. If it's late, you hop out of bed in a flash. Right from the first waking moment, the clock calls the shots. And it stays that way all day.
As we get ready in the morning, we are aware of how long it should take. At school, each class last for a certain lenghth of time, and you only have a certain number of minutes to get from one class to another.
Then it's home from school or work, and we are still controlled by time. We know about how long dinner should take, what time our favorite shows come on the TV. We even watch the clock to know when its time to go to bed.
Notice how we talk about time: It's just one more resource for us to control. We spend time, buy time, save time, waste time, manage time, and invest time. After all, as the saying goes, "Time is money." Since time is a resource that I manage and spend, I tend to see intrusions into my schedule as stealing my time.
Worse yet, when I approach life this way, people are not there for me to serve, but they are obstacles to be overcome. I'm cruising down the highway of life at 65 mph, and there's someone ahead of me doing 50. What do you do? You get around them, and get on your way.
Notice Jesus never treated people like that. As busy as he was, when people interrupted his schedule, he never treated them as obstacles to be overcome; rather, he saw them as opportunities to minister. That's because a fruit of the Spirit is Patience.
II. THE NATURE OF PATIENCE
Like the other fruit of the Spirit, patience has its root in the character of God. In Exodus 34, when Moses asks to see God, God passes in front of Moses and reveals his identity: "Yahweh, Yahweh, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness." This refrain is repeated over and over again throughout the OT.
Psalm 103:8. That's a way of saying, "God is patient."
Notice how God never seems to be in a hurry. 2 Peter 3:8-9. God is patient with us, but God's patience has a purpose. It is not simply laziness or indecisiveness. The point of God's patience is for the good of others. Likewise, we are called to be patient, not for the sake of patience alone, but for the sake of others. So when Paul tries to explain the nature of godly love in 1 Corinthians 13, he begins with the virtue we are talking about today: "Love is patient."
Scripture is filled with admonitions to be patient. Eph. 4:1-3; Col. 3:12-13. Being patient means bearing with others.
III. OBSTACLES TO PATIENCE
A. Exalting Productivity
We pride ourselves on being people who are constantly busy, people of action. Carl Honore, "In our hyped-up, faster-is-better culture, a turbocharged life is still the ultimate trophy on the mantelpiece. When people moan, 'Oh, I'm so busy, I'm running off my feet, my life is a blur, I haven't got time for anything.' What they often mean is, 'Look at me, I am hugely important, exciting and energetic.'"
Have you ever known anyone who wears their business like a badge of honor? Have you ever done that yourself? I sure have.
On the flip side, what could be worse than "doing nothing"? And face it, doesn't being patient often feel like doing nothing?
What happens when demands are placed on our time, and there is nothing to show it? For example, you spend time with a child, stacking blocks, or reading to them. What do you have to show for it at the end of the day? It's important work--but it's easy to feel as if you've wasted time.
In fact, the reason Honore wrote In Praise of Slowness is because he was rushing through and airport and saw a book titled, One Minute Bedtime Stories. He thought, "How perfect! Now I can read my kid several bedtime stories, and still be done in under 10 minutes." Then it hit him, "What am I doing?"
This emphasis on productivity aslo inpacts our worship. Phillip Kenneson comments, "How many of us feel enormously time-conscious when it comes to our corporate worship? It is posssible that there's a connection between our time-consciousness and our sense that we are engaged in an activity whose productivity is suspect? Does the way that we find ourselves talking about worship ("I didn't get anything out of the service today") betray a conviction that our worship ought to be productive? ....Perhaps our fixation with productivity instills in us a deep sense of impatience, an impatience that might partly be responsible for our lack of joy in worship. How can we joyfully engage worship if we are continually mindful of all the other more productive things we could be doing (and will be doing once the service is over)?
Our business effects the way we treat other people, it even effects the way we treat God. Prayer is difficult, because we have things to be doing. When we read Scripture, too often we hurry through it in an effort to get on to other things, rather than reading slowly, reflectively.
IV. CULTIVATING PATIENCE
Yes, patience is a fruit of the Spirit. But there are ways to allow the Spirit to make us into people who are patient. Here are a few suggestions:
A. Observe a Sabbath.
Sabbath was a time to stop, worship, and rest. Sabbath doesn't make much sense in a world where productivity is the highest priority. Other nations would look at the Israelites in wonder: Why would you stop working in your fields when you could be bringing in the harvest? Sabbath is a way of saying we trust God to care for us, not our own productivity. We need time to rest, and to put our lives back into God's hands.
B. Slow down.
OK, this is rather obvious. But cultivate some place where we can resist the notion that we must always do something the quickest way possible. Could there be times when we deliberately choose to do things a slower--seemingly less-efficient way?
Instead of looking for the quickest way to get things done, are there some things that are best done slowly? What if this week, instead of doing all of your correspondence by email or IM, what if you took time to write out a few letters by hand? Sure, email is much quicker, but writing a letter says something about the way you value the other person.
C. Look for God's hand in the interruptions of life.
Sometimes we are so busy, we can't even see God at work around us. Try something radical: When you go to the grocery store, get in the longer line! As you stand there, start talking to the peopple around you. You may find an opprotunity to speak a word of encouragement to them: After all, chances are that they are busy and stressed out. Usually we speed right past them without noticing, because we are so busy ourselves.
D. Abandon yourself in worship.
Just as it means something to others when we give them time, it means something to God when we give him our time.
(Quote from Kenneson, "Is it really conceivable that we will ever learn to be patient with each other when many of us gather for worship with one eye on the hymnal and the other on our watches?...)
So I invite you to join me now as we abandon ourselves, and our schedules, in worship to God...
Post a Comment
<< Home