Tag Archives: Patience

Chapter-a-Day

The Slippery Sweet-Spot Between Acting and Waiting

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Moses answered them, “Wait until I find out what the Lord commands concerning you.”
Numbers 9:8 (NIV)

There are many forks in life’s road. There’s no avoiding it. It just is what it is.

Where do I go to school?
Should I marry him/her?
Do I speak out or hold my tongue?
Should I take this job that’s been offered to me or hold out for the job I really want? 
Should we rent or should we buy?
Do I invest in new or get by with used?
Should we stay or should we go?

As we traverse the Book of Numbers there is a pattern or repetition that many readers don’t catch. The phrase “The Lord said to Moses” is used repeatedly. In fact, it’s used over 50 times. In today’s chapter, some of the people bring Moses a question about how to handle an exceptional circumstance regarding the Passover celebration. Moses simply says he’ll check with God and God provides a seemingly quick answer.

We then go on to read in today’s chapter that the decision of going or staying was miraculously provided for the ancient Hebrews. According to the story there was a cloud that hovered over their traveling tent temple which gave them indication whether God wanted them to move or stay put. When the cloud remained over the tent they stayed put. If the cloud lifted they broke camp and moved.

Wow, I’d love it if God’s guidance and direction were that easy for me to see. At the same time, I have to acknowledge that this may have been the only easy thing in the experience of the Hebrews. I’m quite sure I’d struggle living the life of an ancient nomad wandering in the desert with a couple million cousins.

I have discovered along life’s road that there is a slippery sweet-spot of tension between discernment and decision. We live in an age when time is measured in nanoseconds and we are used to getting things “on demand.” I perceive that the virtues of patience, peace and prayer are increasingly found in short supply in our culture. At the same time, I have known many followers of Jesus who take so long to “prayerfully consider” decisions that they make no progress in their respective  journeys.

This morning I find myself once again seeking to both find and hold the tension between acting and waiting. I don’t want to be so quick to make decisions that I forget to pray for guidance and to give wise consideration to options and potential consequences. At the same time, I don’t want to become paralyzed waiting for some divine sign when there is a clear need to act judiciously and with expedience.

Chapter-a-Day

More, Faster

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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.
James 5:7 (NRSV)

The culture I have known my entire earthly pilgrimage is one of instant gratification. In comparison to my childhood, the world I now experience on a daily basis is instant gratification on steroids. Things just keep moving at increasing speed. This is not the musings of an aging man, but the realities of a culture rebuilding Babel with Cat-5 cable and DNA strands.

When I was 5 I received an “electronic football” game for Christmas that was nothing more than a vibrating panel with little plastic men moving chaotically around the bouncing cardboard panel. Sometimes the “running back” with the magnetic ball on his base would spin around in circles. Sometimes he turned around and vibrate to the opponents end zone for a safety. I was, nevertheless, mesmerized by the experience.

When I was 10 I was playing a hand-held “Mattel Electronic Football” game that was nothing more than little red blips on a tiny screen which would switch on and off representing players (see featured image). I played it for hours, those red blips transformed by  my imagination into the Minnesota Vikings winning the Super Bowl.

When I was 30 I was playing football as a video game on my home computer. The black and white, heavily pixelated graphics seemed revolutionary. Now the computer could simulate actual players, teams and leagues and keep track of my stats across an entire fantasy season.

When I was 40 I had a gaming console playing a much more sophisticated and realistic video game version of football allowing me to play the game as a player, coach the team, or run an entire team franchise including roster moves and salary caps.

At 50 I can play electronic football that looks like a real television broadcast complete with commentary, and I can play against virtually any person, anywhere in the world from the comfort of my man cave.

This is just a trite example, of course. Yet, I can expand this example to almost everything I do during my day. I am growing increasingly used to getting what I want, when I want, and how I want it.

How is this affecting my spirit?

source: singularity.com
source: singularity.com

Throughout God’s Message we find example after example of people who waited. Noah built the ark and waited for years before it rained. Abraham and Sara were promised that their descendants would number like the stars in the sky, then waited for decades before their first child was born. Joseph, as a child, received a vision of his brothers bowing down before him then lived a lifetime of struggle, slavery, scandal and imprisonment before it was ultimately fulfilled. David was promised he would be king as an adolescent boy, then spent thirty years on the run with a price on his head before it would come to fruition.

I have learned along my journey that God’s sense of timing is not our human sense timing. Following Jesus and fulfilling our God-given purpose requires patience, waiting, and perseverance. These qualities are increasingly rare in a world in which I can order virtually anything I want from the palm of my hand and have it delivered to my door step within hours or days. Why on earth would I believe in a God who wants to groom me to accomplish His purpose for over 40 years when I can have my 15 minutes of fame on YouTube right now?

This morning I’m thinking about purpose and patience. In a world that keeps speeding up, I am realizing how critical it is for me to choose to slow down, breathe deeply, and be patient. God’s creation is about the ebb and flow of time and seasons. Humanity’s creation is about more, at increasing rates of speed. If I am going to embrace the former, I must consciously address the latter.

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Chapter-a-Day

Patient Response

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Now if it pleases the king, let a search be made in the royal archives of Babylon to see if King Cyrus did in fact issue a decree to rebuild this house of God in Jerusalem. Then let the king send us his decision in this matter.
Ezra 5:17 (NIV)

In less than two weeks I’ll finish my decade long tenure as President of our local community theatre. We’re a small organization in a small town so our troubles and travails are of little importance in the grand scheme of life. Still, I find it ironic that in the last few months of my term I have experienced more stress and anxiety than ever.

Our stage home resides in a very old building owned by the community that has served us well, but it is in need of extensive repairs and updating. The city is investigating the facility’s use and exploring all of the options available. This has created anxiety and fear for some people, and there have been strong reactions to the situation.

This came to mind this morning as I read of the Hebrews rebuilding the temple while their enemies and neighbors actively petitioned the king and worked political channels to make them stop. I can only imagine the diverse and passionate reactions they must have had among their people to the situation. It makes me glad that I’m merely dealing with a small community theatre and not a national crisis.

In today’s chapter, I read how the political process continued to work itself out. Accusations were met with investigation and the investigation is unearthing the truth of the situation. It takes time, but the Hebrews did well to remain faithful in the task and to trust God to work things out through the process. It’s a great lesson.

Looking back, I see how my passionate reactions to situations in life, motivated by fear and anxiety, have led to unwarranted overreactions. I’ve come to believe that life situations are best handled through patient and thoughtful response. Remaining prayerfully engaged and letting the process play out is rarely a foolish choice.

 

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featured photo:  janicskovsky
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Chapter-a-Day

Even the Wise Stumble

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stumble danceSome of the wise will stumble, so that they may be refined, purified and made spotless until the time of the end, for it will still come at the appointed time.
Daniel 11:35 (NIV)

Our culture does not like stumblers. We like our heroes to be perfect. I have noticed over the years that if we as a culture like a particular hero well enough we will even turn deaf ear and blind eye to his or her stumbling. Most of the time, however, we prefer to socially crucify people for stumbling, especially if their stumbling disappoints us or brings the arrogant down a notch or two.

I found it interesting what the Man in Daniel’s vision slipped in during the lengthy explanation of what was to happen politically in the centuries following Daniel’s life. “Some of the wise will stumble, so that they may be refined, purified and made spotless until the time of the end, for it will still come at the appointed time.” In other words, even the wise may stumble, and there is ultimate purpose in their mistakes as the consequences of their mistakes refines them. People learn from their mistakes.

Having had my fair share of stumbling in this life, I can attest to both the pain and the purpose of the refinement process. The further I get in this journey the more grace I find that I have with the stumbling of others. I find myself more often choosing not to focus on the disappointment of a person’s mistake in the moment, but to consider what good purpose God’s refinement process might ultimately serve in making him or her a more healthy and whole person.

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The Thunder of His Voice on the Horizon

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source: andyrs via Flickr
source: andyrs via Flickr

“At this my heart pounds
    and leaps from its place.
Listen! Listen to the roar of his voice,
    to the rumbling that comes from his mouth.
He unleashes his lightning beneath the whole heaven
    and sends it to the ends of the earth.
After that comes the sound of his roar;
    he thunders with his majestic voice.
When his voice resounds,
    he holds nothing back.”
Job 37:1-4 (NIV)

While I was in college I had a friend whose family owned a cabin on the southeastern shores of Lake Michigan. One evening we were visiting their cabin and parked along some cliffs that afforded an expansive view of the western horizon, the Great Lake, and the Chicago skyline in the distance. It was a gorgeous, calm evening but behind the skyscrapers of Chicago we saw black clouds rising. Over the next couple of hours we watched a massive midwestern thunderstorm develop before our eyes. The dark clouds rose like mighty pillars and giant tentacles of lighting spread out like a breath-taking fireworks display across the evening sky. As the storm enveloped the city and began to cross the lake, the wind rose and giant white caps began to break against the shore beneath us. The thunder was deafening.

God says that His eternal nature is evident in creation, in what He has made. That night looking out over Lake Michigan I remember thinking that we were witnessing a tour de force of God’s might. I’ve never forgotten that experience, and as I read the opening lines of Elihu’s conclusion in this morning’s chapter, my mind took me right back to that night.

Elihu’s final words regarding the thunder of God’s voice foreshadows the final chapters of Job’s epic poem. After 37 chapters of silence in response to Job’s questions and the long debate with his friends, God is about to open His mouth to speak.

As I write this post it is the morning of New Year’s Eve day. I look back on a strange and somewhat difficult year in 2014. I stand on the precipice of 2015 with more questions than answers. It’s perhaps apropos that the year had ended with a journey through Job’s epic poem, with questions, and with struggle. It is equally appropriate that the current year ends waiting to hear from the Almighty, and that the new year will begin with God’s voice. Whether God’s voice arrives in the thunder of a  midwest storm or the whisper of a still, small voice, I’m anxious to hear what God has to say. I’m looking forward to what the new year will bring.

Chapter-a-Day

Weathering the Extremities of Emotional Storms

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source: 57973238@N03 via Flickr
source: 57973238@N03 via Flickr

Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath;
my eyes will never see happiness again.
Job 7:7 (NIV)

I despise my life; I would not live forever.
    Let me alone; my days have no meaning.
Job 7:16 (NIV)

I have never experienced suffering like Job, and I hope that I never do. I have not met anyone who has suffered the level of tragedy that Job suffered. I have, however, heard many people lament the suffering they are experiencing with Job-esque intensity. I have even been been to wail out the blues on occasion myself.

As I read through Job’s diatribe this morning I noticed a common thread that I often discover in my own wailing and in the wailing of others: extremes. Intense emotions tend to produce extreme thinking. Job proclaims that his eyes will never see happiness again. His days have no meaning whatsoever. I empathize with Job’s plight, and I fully understand the extremity of emotions he’s experiencing and expressing. Nevertheless, neither statement is true.

Job does not, at this point, know the end of his story. He does not see the days that lie ahead for him, and he has no crystal ball do divine whether he will ever be happy or not. Not only does Job’s days and suffering have meaning, they will become the source of meaning, understanding, and inspiration for billions of people across the breadth of time.

“Never.”
“Always.”
“Forever.”
“Constantly.”
“Continually.”
“At all.”
“Not once.”

These are words and phrases that I hear in conversation which set off my “extremity” alarm. When the alarm goes off it tells me that whoever is saying it (and, it might very well be me) may be feeling an intensity of emotion that is leading to the experiencing of irrational thought. It’s not necessarily wrong, bad, or sinful. It may very well be part of a healthy progression and expression of feelings that will lead to good things and a healthier place. The pinnacle of the emotional storm might be a very good time to try and empathize with that person, but it may not be the best moment to try and reason with him or her.

Today, I’m thinking about my own penchant for thinking in extremes, and thinking about some extreme proclamations I’ve heard out of people’s mouths in recent days. As I learn to discern these intense conversations in the moment I am able to respond to the extremity alarm with grace, patience, kindness, and empathy rather than anger, frustration, or vengeance. Wisdom is found in knowing when to speak and when to be silent. I’m finding that present, loving silence is often the best response to storms of extreme emotion, and rational words are better left for the calm that eventually comes after the storm.

 

Chapter-a-Day

The Prodigal’s Lesson for Parents

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Rembrandt, The Return of the Prodigal Son, 166...
Rembrandt, The Return of the Prodigal Son, 1662–1669 (Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So [the prodigal son] got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
Luke 15:20 (NIV)

The struggle of parental control and rebellious children is as old as humanity itself and common to even the best of families. The particulars vary as well as the severity, but the path of fierce (and often foolish) independence is well trod by masses of young people escaping the tight grip of smothering (and often foolish) control.

It was while I was a young man working with youth that I first observed the fact that the prodigal’s Father did not go after his son. He didn’t spend a fortune chasing after the boy. He didn’t hire private detectives in the distant country to apprise him of his wasteful son’s dealings and whereabouts. He didn’t go chasing after the kid, confronting him, recounting the boy’s many poor choices and providing him with an itemized statement of all the pains and worry he’d caused. He didn’t seek out his son and demand that the boy return.

The father stayed home and let his son fail. He let his son squander the money and learn first hand what it is to be in need. He let the boy make terrible, self-seeking friends and learn just how trustworthy those types of friends are. He let his son go hungry and stand in pig slop until even the livestock feed began to appeal to him.

Sometimes children need to runaway. It’s part of their journeys and their stories. It teaches them priceless lessons that parents can never provide and their children will never hear. But that does not mean the father was uncaring or unconcerned. In Jesus story, the father sees his son coming from a distance. The father had been watching. The father had been waiting. The father’s eyes had, countless times, turned up the road from the homestead – each glance hoping to catch sight of his lost son coming home.

Jesus story was intended to illustrate Father God’s attitude towards foolish sinners who make tragic life mistakes. Foolish sinners like me. God has been so patient, gracious and forgiving with me in my foolhardy trips (more than one) to distant countries to squander what I’d been given. It would be hypocritical of me not to afford my own children the grace that Father God has showered me, one of His many prodigal.

Chapter-a-Day

Seed, to Sapling, to Shade

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source: Ikonotekton via Flickr
source: Ikonotekton via Flickr

Then Jesus asked, “What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds perched in its branches.” Luke 13:18-19 (NIV)

I am notoriously bad at growing things. I often feel ashamed of this. When you are born and live in Iowa nearly your entire life you tend to think that a green thumb should naturally be bred into your DNA. My paltry attempts at gardening and growing houseplants over the years have been an endless string of dismal failures (not unlike the Cubs attempts to win a World Series).

I am, nevertheless, increasingly appreciative of the time and patience it takes for things to take root, grow, and develop over time. I have observed over my lifetime how our culture has become focused on things happening instantly. I marvel to think how fast thing happen. We have fast food, faster downloads, a library at our fingertips, digital photos without developing, news from around the world popping incessantly on our smartphones, video calls with loved ones on the other side of the world, and on, and on, and on.

Along life’s journey I have come to realize that, unlike our consumer society, God is not a slave to the demands of the market He serves. He remains concerned with seasons of cultivating, planting, growing, pruning and harvest. God’s Kingdom is less about instant gratification and more about perfect timing. Chained to this concept we call time, I observe that we are incessantly focused on striving to pack in as much as we possibly can, as quickly as we can make things happen. Existing omnisciently outside of time, present in all moments at once, the Creator affords a perspective we can’t quite grasp in the moment.

I find this dilemma affects even how we want things to happen spiritually. I watch the effects with my fellow Jesus followers in our institutional churches. We want quick decisions, instant repentance, immediate life change, and the fruit of the Spirit produced post haste. We want attendance to explode in our services or we consider it a failure.

This morning I am reminded that God’s Kingdom is comparable to a tree that is grown from a small seed. A tree requires time to progress from seed to root to sapling to fruitful maturity when many can benefit from the shade of its branches. It requires patience and must persevere through difficult seasons and less than ideal circumstances. It will suffer from branches that don’t make it. I am encouraged by this truth. Progress, not perfection, is the prescription of the day. It gives me reason to have a little more grace with myself and to extend a little more love and mercy towards others.

Chapter-a-Day

Journeys, Waypoints, and Destinations

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familyThese six were born to David in Hebron, where he reigned seven years and six months. David reigned in Jerusalem thirty-three years…. 1 Chronicles 3:4 (NIV)

Time has been on my mind a lot lately. From my current waypoint on life’s road I’m watching our daughters in the early stages of their adult lives. Taylor has been working and planning for grad school. Madison is taking a year off of being a full-time student to work and get her Colorado residency. They are dealing with jobs and bosses and learning lessons about living life on their own. Wendy’s sister, Suzanna, has been living with us for almost a year. We’ve helped her manage her senior year of high school, watched her graduate, and now we’re helping her navigate job, plans for college, and setting a course for life. These three very capable young ladies have so much of life ahead of them, so many lessons to learn, and so many things to experience. I’m excited for each one.

Wendy and I are at a very different place in the journey, and it sometimes feels odd to me in the same way it feels odd for Taylor not to have the summer off, for Madison to be taking time away from school, or for Suzanna to think she never has to go back to high school. I look at our parents and assume that they have their own oddities they feel with their respective waypoints on life’s road. The journey is about being in motion. The road never stops taking you to places unfamiliar. Try as you might, you can never rush the journey. “Shortcuts make for long delays.”

I’m reminded once more this morning of David’s journey. Anointed King of Israel as a boy, it was many years before he was crowned the head of his tribe, and another seven and a half years before that led to the throne of Israel for which he was anointed and destined (remember that destiny and destination are related!). Roughly twenty some years lay between those two waypoints in which his life’s road twisted, turned, rose, fell, and switched-back in odd ways. C’est la vie.

Today I’m grateful for God’s faithfulness and abundant grace. I’m excited and prayerful for our girls as they follow behind on life’s road. I’m prayerful and supportive of our parents who blaze the trail ahead. I’m content knowing that with every knew experience along the way come odd feelings and new lessons. Our job is to keep moving. We’ll reach our respective waypoints in God’s perfect timing.

Lace ’em up friends. Here we go.

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Chapter-a-Day

Some Things Take Time

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English: Sample catalog card in the card catal...
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

David was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned forty years.
2 Samuel 5:4 (NIV)

When I was a boy I spent entire class periods of elementary school learning how to use the library. If I was interested in a subject or had a question that needed answering I would have to wait until the day of the week our class would visit the school library. I would look up the subject in a large set of drawers that housed small index cards arranged by the Dewey Decimal System. It gave me a number that corresponded to the numbers on the spines of books arranged on the shelf and from there I could find all the books on the subject that interested me. Then, all I had to do was scour the books on the shelf to find what I was looking for.

By the time I was a teenager there was a set of Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedias on the book shelf in our home. My mom acquired the entire set of encyclopedias, volume by volume, over a period of time using S&H “Green Stamps” she got at the Hy-Vee grocery store. What a time saver. Now, if I wanted the answer to a question I could go to our basement family room and look it up in the encyclopedia.

When I was in my twenties I purchased my first computer. It was an IBM PS1 with a 3.5 inch “floppy” disc drive and no internal hard drive. I eventually purchased a 300 megabyte hard drive for just over $300 and installed it myself. With that computer I got on the internet for the first time through a phone line that dialed-up the connection, but anyone trying to call me at home would get an intermittent tone called a “busy signal” telling them that I was using the phone line at the moment.

By the time I was thirty, I was able to access almost any information I wanted on the internet from home. No going to the library. No looking it up in a book. Simply dial-in to the internet (which by then I could do AND still use the home phone line AT THE SAME TIME! Genius!) and type in what you’re looking for.

On the way to the lake this past Wednesday night Wendy and I saw a gorgeous rainbow. “Why are rainbows arched?” we mused. Wendy simply picked up her phone, which is connected to the internet at all times, and asked the question. Everything you could possibly want to know about the subject was available to us instantly on our cell phone as we sat in our car speeding down Highway 63 in rural Missouri.

Face it. We are becoming an increasingly impatient people. I think we have enjoyed the blessings of rapidly advancing and evolving technology which deliver results and instant gratification, but scarcely have we realized the impact that it’s having on us.

David was anointed king as a boy. Chapter-by-chapter we’ve followed his journey across some twenty years from being a young hero over Goliath, to developing into a warrior, to spending years as an outlaw on the run, to becoming a mercenary for hire against his own people, to becoming the leader of his tribe. He didn’t realize the fruition of his anointing until he was 30.

Some things take time, and we are being increasingly conditioned to believe that everything should happen for us immediately and upon demand. I know I’m at risk for sounding like a stodgy old man grieving the good old days, but I’m really not. I enjoy the blessings of technology as much as everyone else. At the same time, I wonder what it is doing to me, how it is changing me, and when I should be concerned. One of the fruits of God’s Spirit is patience. David had to learn it in his long trek to the throne. I have had to learn it (often the hard way) in relationships and life and art and business.

Today, I’m reminding myself to be patient. Some things take time in order to work out for the best, and I want God’s best for me, no matter how long it takes.

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