October 10, 2004

"The Road of God is Patience"

I have a young friend named Joyana who graduated from college this spring. Joyana has an amazing depth of spirituality and concern for others. I wish that any of you who think that the young generation is totally selfish and empty-headed could meet her. After graduation she chose to spend the next two years living in Mexico with poor families, sharing their life and just being totally empathetic with them.

However, she has already discovered that things are not what she expected. For example, she deliberately chose to enter a program that didn’t emphasize teaching, but her first assignment was to teach English to small children and values to older children. She thought she would be living with the poorest of the poor, but was placed instead with a middle class family.

And frankly, I think Joyana was fired up to change the world in a heartbeat, while as we all know hearts can only be changed the way the Grand Canyon was formed, one drop of water at a time.

Joyana recounted her first month in Mexico in an e-mail this week, and said she met with the head of a group of Catholic sisters who work in her village, explaining how hard it was for a young American woman to let go of the expectations she had brought with her, and the sister, Madre Aurora, listened and laughed a little and finally replied, “Joyana, la camina de Dios es paciencia.” The road of God is patience.

Now when I talk to others about patience I usually feel like an ax murderer who has been named to the Parole Board. What right do I have to talk to somebody else about patience when I’m always in a terrible hurry myself? When I can be extremely impatient with people. Maybe you have similar struggles with developing patience. Nevertheless, the topic is so important for all of us, if we are to give effective witness for Christ in this world, that we need to revisit the meaning of patience from time to time. We need to remember that when God is telling us to have patience, he is urging us to have hope and trust in his power to deliver us from all our trials and suffering.

There are five parts to the Christian patience that God is trying to teach us, trying to encourage us to walk on his road, and this morning in that spirit of hope and trust I want to briefly touch on all five with you.

The first is Do Not Give Up. The second, Things Happen in Their Season. The third, Have Faith and Trust in God. The fourth, Keep Your Eyes on the Goal. And finally, Patience Is Necessary to Develop Character.

Max Lucado wrote in his book “In The Eye of the Storm” about Chippie the Parakeet and the trials he endured at the hands of a seemingly loving owner.

One moment Chippie was happily perched in his cage, and the next he was sucked in, washed up and blown over. The problems started when Chippie’s owner decided to clean his cage with a vacuum cleaner. She stuck the hose in his cage and turned on the power just as the phone rang.

She barely said “hello” when the hose sucked up poor Chippie right into the vacuum’s bag. The owner frantically opened the bag, and there was the bird, all dirty and stunned, but okay.

She grabbed the little bird, all covered with dust and soot, and ran to the bathroom, turned on the faucet and held Chippie under the running water. Then, realizing the bird was now soaked and shivering, she did what any compassionate bird lover would do; she got out the hair dryer and blasted Chippie with hot air. Poor Chippie never knew what hit him. A few days later, a friend of Chippie’s owner called to ask how the little bird had survived the ordeal. “Well,” the woman replied, “Chippie doesn’t sing much any more. He just sits and stares.”

Does that sound like the story of your life? Do you feel a little sucked in, washed up and blown over? Lucado said we all have a tendency to feel overwhelmed by our problems. Developing patience helps us to get out from under that rock and out into the sunlight once more. So let’s run through the five principles I mentioned together.

First of all, our most important principle is Don’t Give up. Who can tell me what I have in my hand? Right, it’s a tea bag. If I wanted to make a cup of tea with this, what would I have to do? You put the tea bag in a cup and add hot water. Then what happens? The flavor of the tea is added to the water.

If I want to change the flavor of the tea, I don’t change the water, I change the tea bag. The hot water is merely the catalyst for bringing out the flavor of the tea bag. If you want orange-flavored tea, you don’t use a peppermint tea bag. Makes sense?

The Christian life is a lot like this—God sends us hot water experiences. Can you guess where I’m going with this? God sends us hot water to draw out the flavor of our hearts. As we find ourselves in strange and difficult situations, God shows us what is really in our hearts—and maybe, what needs to change. He shows us where we might be falling short of the example of Christ, or where we might be falling short of full faith in God. His expectation is that we will learn and grow from the experience. But sometimes we miss the point.

Imagine what would happen if you went out tomorrow morning and turned the key on your car and the engine clanks and sputters and spits out blue smoke. You know your car needs a change.

So you send it to the shop and they paint the car a nice cherry red and they wax it and detail it and put new tires on it and bring it back to you. You’re impressed with the beautiful paint job. You put on sunglasses because of the glare from the wax job. Then you turn the key, and boom, more smoke from the engine.

When we get into hot water situations, we need to figure out what needs to be changed, not give up and be defeated.

That’s what Paul said in Romans 12:2: “Don’t be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” In other words, don’t be like the world, all self-centered and self-righteous, but develop patience so that you can figure out what God wants you to do for him. God is at work in the world; we can’t see it because we get out of tune with him. God is at work all around the world this very morning, and his purposes will be accomplished whether we help or not. But he wants to use us for his purposes. Learning patience will help us see them.

Our second principle is that things happen, both good and bad, in their season. God designed us to live with an internal rhythm, and all our lives are governed by that rhythm. In other words, sometimes the bad things that happen to us are getting us prepared for the good times that will follow, but in any event we will not be able to good works until we’re ready. Look at the life of Jesus, for example. We know that Jesus lived to be 33, but we have a detailed biography of only the last three years of his life. Of the years between ages 12 and 30, we know nothing at all.

These 18 years are called the Hidden Years, But Luke’s Gospel gives us a wonderful one-sentence summation of those years, “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.”

He wasn’t impatient to get started with his ministry; those were the years of preparation, prayer, study, meditation, getting ready for the three years of the greatest life of service the world has ever seen.

Things happen in our lives at their appointed time, and we cannot make them happen any sooner by being impatient.

Third, we need to have faith and trust that God is working, even in those we find really hard to take. That’s probably the hardest part of patience for all of is, am I right? There is an ancient story told by the Jews of the night that Abraham was sitting outside his tent when an old man, a stranger, came to him seeking a meal. Abraham welcomed him warmly and washed the old man’s feet, bringing him the finest food for an evening meal. But the stranger dug in without pausing to pray, and Abraham said, “Don’t you worship God before you eat?” The old man replied, “My only god is fire.” Abraham got angry, seized the man and threw him out into the night.

When the old man had departed, God called out to Abraham his friend, “Where is the old man who came to your tent tonight?” Abraham said, “I forced him out because he did not worship you.”

And God said, “I have suffered him these 80 years even though he dishonors me. You could not endure him one night?”

We can be so impatient with people, can’t we? Yet God, who takes the long range view of all of us, has been working with nasty people all their lives, trying to get them turned around. Second Peter tells us that “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” For his sake, can’t we endure unpleasant people just a little while longer?

Our fourth point is that we need to keep our eye on the final prize as we wait patiently for Christ to return. We hope for the kingdom of Christ to be established on earth, and we long for our own place in that kingdom.

That takes hope. And hope requires patience. Those two also go hand in hand. In fact, hope has been called “patience with the lamp lit.” That’s what Christ told us to do—wait, and watch. Keep the lamp burning.

And that’s not easy in our modern world. I’ve always believed that you are as young as your hope. There are many people of advanced years who keep a youthful outlook. They have a positive view of the future.

Then there are people who are old before their time. They have no hope. They are always complaining.

Some people are eager to tell us that those who hope are fools and idiots. The German philosopher Nietzsche wrote that “Hope is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs the torment of man.” Author Aldous Huxley wrote, “Maybe  this world is another planet’s hell.” Albert Camus, a French philosopher, wrote, “He who holds hope for the human condition is a fool.”

If you want to turn away from stinking thinking like that, you have only one real choice—to live patiently in the Christian promise, the final triumph of God, the completion of God’s redemption of the world through his son Jesus Christ. That’s what all of scripture is about, from Abraham’s belief in God’s promise through the final words of the Book of Revelation, “Come, Lord Jesus.” We can be patient in the present only if we have our eyes fixed on that promise.

If you believe that this world is all there is, and then things turn sour as they often do, what resources do you have to endure? Not much.

But if you believe that life has all its trial and problems but there is another life to come and we are thus called to live as nobly and sacrificially as possible in this one until the time when we see God face to face, then we have all the reason in the world to live in patience and hope.

Finally, we say that patience is necessary to develop character. That’s what James was saying in his letter written to the 12 tribes of Israel, who had been kicked out of their homeland by the Romans and scattered to the winds. James says “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces patience. And let patience have its full effect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”

How many of you are joyful when you hit trials in your life? How many of you cry out to God, “Yeah, bring on more problems, God.”

No, we usually ask God to spare us from our trials and afflictions. We say, “Get me out of this mess, Lord,” and yet God frequently answers, “No, I want you to endure. I’m working to build you up and make you stronger.” There is an African proverb, “Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors,” and when God sends us difficulty, he is making us mature in the faith. If we learn patience, we are learning trust. The two work hand in hand.

A young man went to a devout older Christian and asked him to pray that the young man would learn patience. So they knelt together and the older man began to pray, “Lord, send this boy problems in the morning. Send him problems in the afternoon. Send him…” And the young man blurted out, “Wait a minute, I didn’t ask you to pray that I would have problems, I asked you to pray that I would have patience.” “Ah,” he replied, “but it’s in our problems that we learn patience.” No one ever had more problems than Job—he lost his money, his children, his health and finally his wife, but in all his trials he persevered. God sent him many tests, but he came through them shining like gold. That should be the goal for all our lives.

To close today, I’d like to remind us all, myself most of all, that God reveals his will for the world in his time, never in ours.

 It is my firm belief that God will reveal his will for the East Liberty Presbyterian Church in his time, not ours.

I have heard various members of the church question why attendance at Sunday services is down.

I have heard others say that the membership is simply getting old. In my own heart I have felt doubt, that maybe I’m not doing enough or not doing it well enough. To all of us I say this morning, “la camina de Dios es paciencia.”

We have the word of God, and we have each other, and that is enough. God promised his blessing on all those who love him, and that promise is renewed every day of our lives. The last words of Joyana’s e-mail this week were, “If we cannot do much, let us be content to do a little.” And a little can be much in the hands of the great God we worship. To him be all power and glory and honor forever. Amen.