Henry Nouwen has taught me that patience is a discipline and not a gift. Just like fasting or meditation – it is something that we can practice and get better at. We have two impulses that are part of our normal reaction to our world – we either want to flee or fight. Translate that into our spiritual development and it sounds something like this: We want to put our faith either in hiding away from the problem or in controlling and solving the problem. Both these actions - keeping quiet and fighting for what we believe is ours, lead us away from the cross and into our own solutions. Both are totally insufficient as solutions to our problems and usually cause just bigger problems.
There is a third option – faith in the Lord’s sovereign faithfulness. This option leads to the cross – not my will but Your will be done, and to a place of waiting on Him. This is the place of blessing and where our strength is renewed like that of an eagle. This is the place of patience. Patience does not mean that we just submit to adverse circumstances, neither does it mean that we hide from confronting the problems. It does not mean that we become doormats or submit to evil – it is something that we see in the life of Jesus – He waited patiently for the time to come to fullness, but He acted when he saw the Father move to clear the Temple. During that time of waiting, he was sustained by the Spirit in Him – like Paul describes it in Rom 8 – when we don’t know how to pray then the Spirit comes to our aid – now we know that all things work together for good…
Adverse circumstances and pressure can either break us or teach us the principle of faith working through patience. To just stand there in the pressure of your job, waiting on God to see what he is going to do, is very difficult because of the way we think and because of the pressure of the world, but learning to wait on Him, is what the Christian life is all about – waiting especially not for Him to resolve our issues, but to do what he wants to do through a particular set of circumstances that he had engineered lovingly to get us to a place where he can answer our prayers for spiritual growth.
Our new man is like a path hidden under autumn leaves – it is there but at times not seen at all. The spiritual disciplines are the broom that clears the path – to reveal what is already there. The correct reaction to the pressure is there in you – the revelation that will set you free has been given because Christ is in you, you need to sweep the path to let it become evident in your life.
This is where the choice comes in – are we choosing to run, to fight or to wait in faith? Where do we put our faith – in hiding, in controlling or in the cross?
This choice is a continual battle and a journey and all that we can pray for t is that we will eventually get better at it.
So what am I saying? When you are feeling swamped, it may be a sign that he is answering your prayer for spiritual growth by allowing circumstances in your life that will produce growth if you can learn to patiently wait for Him. This will correspond with what James wrote – count it all joy….
Remember, patience is a discipline – no discipline is easy, but the Holy Spirit will help if we ask Him.
What did Forrest Gump say? “S-H-I-T happens”. It does – we have to learn how to be serene in the midst of it – that is the reason why things sometimes do not get better and our prayers seem not to be answered.