Dealing with the Tough Stuff

 

Last night we heard the testimony of a man who turned from his former religion to faith in Christ. His family disowned him. His father and other relatives severely beat him and tried to kill him. He eventually escaped his homeland to live as a refugee in another country that did not want him either. He married, had a child and lived in hiding. After several years, he obtained official refugee status, then was adopted by a church in Canada, and finally, after much suffering, he and his family are living in freedom.

This man is soft-spoken, calm, with great patience. He needs it even yet. Their child had not been outside or interacted with others. He can now enjoy the world and meet people but without knowing how to behave. He is super energetic, runs everywhere, yet cannot focus. His parents have been patient in their suffering. Now they need a different kind of patience — as parents!

God is patient, a word that is also translated LONGSUFFERING, the same Hebrew word but in English carries different connotations. Patience seems more like waiting with understanding, or able to calm quarrels and persuade kings, much like a farmer waiting for his crop to ripen, or like a parent with a growing child.

Our God is like that. The OT says, “The Lord, is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”  

The NT describes His longsuffering with verses like, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” and “I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.”

This word is also translated as longsuffering, which is also patience, but suggests that when someone is patiently holding on to a reaction rather than expressing it, they are feeling some pain or suffering in regard to whatever is happening. It is like tolerating verbal abuse from someone you respect, or waiting for deliverance from extreme illness. Longsuffering describes God as He watches His children sin and waits for their repentance, feeling pain not for Himself but for us because sin is blocking His blessings in our lives. But His patience is not about being stoic and without feeling:

“The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.” (Psalm 103:8–10)

“What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction . . . .” (Romans 9:22)

When God tells me to be patient, He could mean that same kind of longsuffering. The OT prophets had to endure the disobedience of God’s people. James 5:10 says, “As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.”

This longsuffering is a fruit of the Spirit. That is, if I am filled with God’s Spirit, I will be patient, which could include a long time of enduring something unpleasant, not out of a stoic endurance but because of love . . .

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness . . . .” (Galatians 5:22)

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant . . . .” (1 Corinthians 13:4)

Some say patience is a virtue, yet patience begins with and requires a focus on others who need help, not on any ‘feel good’ that longsuffering might give me. 1 Thessalonians 5:14 says: “And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.”

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. Whatever it is called, patience and longsuffering are attitudes I cannot attain without the Lord. Colossians 1:11 calls me to be “strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy” and Romans 12:12 says I need to “Rejoice in hope, be (longsuffering) in tribulation, be constant in prayer.”

James calls it the virtue of completeness and because of that, adds, “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.” (James 5:7–8) The OT offers further motivation in Proverbs 19:11 by saying, “Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.” I have no claim to glory unless it is to trust the Lord of glory with anything that tempts me to be impatient.

 

Unflappable

In the book I’m reading one of the characters says “money is power.” In the city I live in the candidates who won yesterday’s civic elections say votes gave them power. The newspaper article I just read was about the power of hurricanes. In some families, mom has all the power, or dad, or the kids. The point is, power is different things to different people.

In Colossians 1:11-12, Paul prayed that Christians would be “strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.”

No doubt “His glorious power” has many different meanings too. Some suppose the power of God is His ability to create and destroy. Others might think it is His sovereign control, or His ability to change hearts. Some pray that God will bring them health, wealth and total happiness, indicating that His power is about granting them whatever they ask.

In these verses from Colossians, Paul offers a different definition. He puts power in the same category as “patience,” “longsuffering with joy” and “giving thanks.” Many people think that these things have nothing to do with power, but God’s Word says otherwise.

My study Bible says patience has to do with enduring difficult circumstances, while longsuffering is more about enduring difficult people. Sometimes both happen at the same time, but anyone who suffers trials of any sort knows the impossibility of being joyful and thankful during those trials. I know I cannot manage it. Even at the best of times, it’s easy to find something to be unhappy about or to grumble. God asks me to “count it all joy” (James 1:2-4) when my world falls apart, but sometimes I have trouble being joyful when all things are going well!

The power of God is about being like God. Christians inherit His nature. The Holy Spirit lives in us to give us godliness, yet godliness is not about having power as defined by the dictionary; it is about having power as defined by the character of God.

Whatever life hands me today, God wants me to respond to it in His power, meaning that I will be patient, enduring, joyful and thankful—whether my day is creative or the wheels fall off; whether I see God changing my world or I feel He is absent; whether I see change in myself and others or backsliding; whether I get richer or poorer, stronger or weaker, happier or sadder. If God answers my prayers or does not, living in His power means that I am patient and joyful, the same, all the time.

About a year ago, I selected a word as my goal. The word was “unflappable.” Every now and then God reminds me that the only way I can reach this target is through Him. Today He shows me that only His awesome and surprising power can keep me the same, all the time, unflappable.

Do it for Me. . .

This morning I caught a glimpse of a public television segment about the way the stars are lined up for romance this Valentines day. I wondered if that was what God had in mind when He planned their route!

He does line up things, I am sure of that. This week, I’m studying ‘patient endurance’ for my ladies Bible class. I am also in a trial that requires patient endurance, and yesterday life confronted me with another trial demanding the same thing. This latest one is far more difficult; the biblical response is beyond me. I’ve no desire, motive or reason for being ‘longsuffering’ for this other person, other than I know that is what God wants.

However, God lined up one more thing—my devotional reading for today. It is one line from Matthew 26, “But when Jesus was aware of it, He said to them, ‘Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a good work for Me.’”

Jesus was eating a meal when a woman (Mary, the sister of Lazarus and Martha) broke a costly alabaster flask filled with expensive oil and poured it on His head. Initiated by Judas, the disciples were indignant and complained that the oil should have been sold and the money given to the poor. To them, what she had done was a waste of resources.

I feel the same thing about the ‘longsuffering’ required of me. What good will it do? I’m a results-oriented person. However, even though God is teaching me to ‘do the right thing regardless of the results,’ I am protesting under this latest ‘opportunity to do the right thing.’

To the disciples, Jesus said that the poor were always there, and that they could always find things to do for them, but Mary did what she did for Him, to anoint Him for His burial.

My devotional book points out that when the other women went to Jesus’ tomb to anoint Him, He was gone. Mary was the only one who anointed Him; the others were too late. Jesus said, “Wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.” Her act of obedience had long-range effects.

This is grace. He knew the sacrifice Mary made; that oil was worth at least one year’s wages. He knew she would suffer criticism from His disciples, yet her reward remains.

To me Jesus says, “There are always opportunities to do things that bring visible results. I’m asking you to trust Me on this one, and like Mary, do it for Me.”

This also is grace. He offers me a reason, a strong motivation to be longsuffering towards this other person. He knows I cannot endure without any hope of reward. So He lined things up so I can see that He is simply asking me to do it for Him.