Patience

We've been going over the fruits of the Spirit in church for the past little bit. Three weeks ago was peace, which I missed. But that's OK. The one I really knew I needed more than any other was patience.

So I eagerly went to church two weeks ago, ready to hear about patience. And it turned out to be a missions Sunday, no sermon. So I thought, "Aww man, I have to wait to hear about patience!" Then last week I went and it was a 4th of July sermon. No patience. Again, I couldn't stand waiting. But I guess the pastor was (unintentionally) making me be patient for the sermon on patience.

So finally, yesterday, the day arrived. The sermon I'd waited impatiently for as proof that I needed to hear it. Here are some things that stuck out to me.

First of all, one of the ways he defined patience was "a calm assurance based on the certainty that God is in control." This really struck me because I thought, If patience is trusting that God is in control, maybe my impatience is rooted in trying to maintain control. And of course I can't have assurance with myself in control...I know I'll fail! I need to grow in trusting God and giving him control. I need to rely on this so much more.

The thing with the fruits of the Spirit is that they aren't really things you can push yourself to grow in. They aren't commands we're to strive to obey. They're fruits. Fruit just grows. If we're rooted in the Holy Spirit, the fruits grow. So my lack of patience demonstrates that I'm not abiding in Christ the way I need to. It all comes back to a lack of trust and letting him have the control that he really has anyway.

Here's the other thing that stuck out to me: Romans 5:3-5. Because sometimes I feel like one of the hardest thing about patience is uncertainty. How can you be patient for something you want or hope for when you don't know if you'll ever even get it? What if you're being patient for nothing? I actually wrote something along these lines in my sermon journal before the sermon started.

So when the pastor read Romans 5:3-5, I realized that patience yields good things even if we don't get what we're waiting for. Troubles produce patience, which produces character, which produces hope. I want a strong character. I want to be full of hope. So if I wait patiently for something I never attain, I still come out a winner.

Deception

I've blogged before about Lucy, my '92 LeBaron dream car. I drove Lucy during college. Let me tell you a bit more about Lucy. Aside from the hood latch, her body was in great shape. I'm talking not one part of the ceiling sagging. No rips or stains in the upholstery. No rust spots, no major scratches or dents. No cracks in the glass. And when I scrubbed her down with a gas station squeegee (a college student way of getting a free car wash), she really sparkled. Aside from the fact that Lucy was obviously not a new model in style, she was a beaut.

When she finally died, I found a friend and her mechanic boyfriend, who came to see what might be wrong. When the mechanic opened the hood, he was astounded. One problem I remember he pointed out, was this blue powder of corrosion by every single bolt on the engine.

He had a lot more to say than that. I don't really speak car so I didn't get it all. But the bottom line: it was the end of the road for Lucy and me.

To look at Lucy, you'd think she was in great condition. It's what her outside communicated. I knew I had to put in more oil almost as much as gas, and that was a problem, but otherwise I had no indication she wasn't in perfect health.

I think if Jesus were to talk to the Pharisees today, he'd compare them to Lucy. In reality, he called them whitewashed tombs, a more culturally relevant metaphor back then. All pretty on the outside, but dead on the inside. Lucy's well-cared for exterior was a facade, a deception, covering the decay and rot in the part of her that really mattered: her engine.

Religion can do that to us. That's why Jesus thought the Pharisees were whitewashed tombs. Their religion made them look all good and holy and righteous. But true righteousness isn't about showing off how perfect you are. It's about a heart and a passion for God. That's the engine. And for the Pharisees, it was as dead as Lucy's.

I want to be so much more than an empty shell. I don't want my life to be a deception covering up decay. I want to be beautiful where it really counts: in my heart.

Be

I decided to do something a little different for this year's resolutions. In the past few years I've set a bunch of tangible goals to achieve that year. And I've generally met or come close to meeting about half of them, which I count as success. It's more than I would've done without any goals.

But 2011 was a year of so many unexpected things, some good, many bad. It was a year of change. And as I thought ahead to 2012, I realized my plans don't come to anything without a steadfast devotion to God. I prayed last night, as I drove home from the bingo bash at work, that no matter what this year holds, no matter what I lose or gain, that God will help me go through it with faithfulness, endurance, and unswerving love for him.

And as I thought about what I want to accomplish this year, I didn't think of tangible, measurable goals. I thought about some of the blogs I've written lately and who I want to be. So these are my two resolutions:

Be you.

Be first.

The "be you" resolution relates to the blog I wrote a couple weeks ago, "Come Define Me." My sister has challenged me to embrace my pickiness. It's not a sinful thing, and it's a part of how God made me. And as my Come Define Me blog indicated, I've been thinking about a lot of ways I haven't been the person God created me to be, letting others define me instead. This year I want to work on letting God define me. That's not to say I won't work to change the sinful parts of me. But I want to embrace the person he made me to be. I want to embrace who I am in relation to who he is.

I love this quote from Rob Bell: "You be you. Don't be somebody else, we already have one of them." So that's what I resolve to do this year. Be me.

The "be first" one means I want to be first in the kingdom of heaven. I blogged about that recently, too. And when my nephew (age 4) was talking about wanting to be first this Christmas, I said to him, "You know what? Jesus had a secret for always getting to be first. You want to hear it?" His eyes lit up. "Yeah!"

"Put everyone else before you. Jesus sees it backwards. So if you put yourself last every time, you're really first!"

I want to be first where it counts this year. I want to lose my attitude of entitlement and serve God humbly, being last in this world so as to be first where it counts.