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.

The End

Here's something that's captured my attention: John 11:4. Upon hearing that his friend Lazarus is sick, Jesus tells his disciples, "This sickness will not end in death."

The key word being end. Because it does result in death, for a few days.

And most of the time, death is the end. So what the disciples understood, then, was probably more like, "Lazarus won't die." You've got to wonder what the disciples thought, then, when Jesus later tells then Lazarus is dead. What did that do to their faith? Did they think he was a fraud? Did they think he just didn't really know what was going to happen? He told them he was going there to wake Lazarus up, but the sleeping metaphor had already confused them. And Thomas said they should go die with him...so perhaps they just thought death was a metaphor. But what about when they got to Bethany and found out he really was dead? What was going on in their heads?

Well, we just don't know. But I can tell you that trials much less final than death often feel like the end of the world to me. So often I lose sight of hope, of the future, of God's promises. So often I don't see how they could possibly be true. How could it possibly be true that Lazarus' sickness wouldn't end in death, when here he was, dead? How could it be that God is with me when sometimes, I just don't feel like he is? How can God really be victorious over Satan when sometimes his temptations reign so strongly in my life? How can God make the impossible possible when it really feels like the end of the story?

Lazarus' story reminds us that sometimes, what we think is the end is only the middle of the story. And the real end? Just what I recently reflected on in Philippians 3: "Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, Christ Jesus our Lord."

This trial, this struggle, this temptation: it's not the end. It's just the middle of a story with a fabulous, glorious ending, already written by the God of impossibilities.

Struggling

Yesterday I noticed a theme as I read through my daily Scripture passages.

Psalm 71:14: "But as for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more."

Proverbs 24:10: "If you falter in times of trouble, how small is your strength?"

Philippians 1:18: Paul, after sharing about being in chains and about people trying to undermine him, says, "Yes, and I will continue to rejoice."

I think one of the hardest things to do is rejoice and have hope in times of trouble. But I loved the way the Proverb I cited puts it. The best way to measure the strength of your faith is to see how well it stands up when you're struggling. Will you, like the Psalmist, always have hope? Will you, like Paul, continue to rejoice?

I know I haven't often (or ever?) done this. I guess that tells you the measure of my strength. But I'm inspired by this theme in my Bible reading. I want to be strong enough to say I will always have hope - no matter what happens. I will continue to rejoice - even in the midst of bad circumstances.

This Broken World

Today's the 10-year anniversary of 9/11. So I was thinking about that day, ten years ago. I remember distinctly being in journalism class, around 10 am. Senior year of high school. We had no TV, no radio, no way of knowing what had already happened. Our assignment was to look at newspaper articles from that day's paper. I forget what we had to do with them.

But I'd had a similar assignment in elementary school and I remember thinking then how hard it was to find good news at the time. And on this day in 2001, I had a hard time finding an article that was bad news. I was really impressed. Completely oblivious to the tragedy our country was facing, I was thinking, "Wow! There's a lot of good news today! Maybe our world is getting a little better."

Then it was lunch time. And word was spreading about the attacks. My friend Mindy was the one who told me about the news. She just had little pieces of information - news was limited in the confines of our high school. I didn't even get what a big deal it was until my next class, where I got more info from my teacher (who'd listened to the radio over lunch).

But looking back I realize how foolish I was to put hope in this broken world. It was busted within an hour, as well it should've been. Our world is full of tragedy, most not as personal as 9/11 was for our country. But every day this world is facing tragedies. There's no hope in what this world has to offer, because it's full of sinful people, some hateful enough to kill mass numbers of people.

No, the only thing worth hoping in is Jesus. He is the one who will never let you down.