Active Patience

Dear Sisters,
I am not a patient individual by nature. Then, God blessed me with a husband… and five children. In fact, I have begun to write this while nursing my youngest. If I could, I would add a few more activities from my to-do list, but I have a feeling that would only result in incomplete chores and a wailing child. As you can imagine, I have a tremendous need for patience. I sorely wish God would “ding” me on the head and magically change me into a phenomenally long suffering woman. Since God is not the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella, my gut tells me I have been signed up for patience-lessons.

Paul wrote the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. If the Spirit resides within me, why am I not good, kind, joyful, and patient at all times? Well, becoming a new creature in Christ resembles a slave being freed from her master who can choose to return to the master and work like a slave again (though the chains are broken), or leave and create a new life. As a new believer, Christ freed the maid from the chains to sin, but He did not place her on a throne, she remains in her world. In other words, as believers, we can now choose to act patiently instead of blowing up in anger, but it is not as if our brains have been completely altered and the only option we have is to be patient. If they had, we would effectively be robots, destroying the reason God created us in the first place.

That brings to mind non-believers patiently loving their own children. Surely the church does not hold the monopoly on virtue. Non-believers can be gentle, peaceful, and kind. The difference between the world’s virtue and the church’s is the goal. Christ admonishes us to love others. A worldly individual chooses to act in accordance with God’s law, or to love others in order to gain for themselves—whether to gain admiration from others or to avoid punishment, their goal is selfish. A believer’s actions should be motivated by the desire to love and follow Christ.

“It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.” Gal. 5:1. This seemed to me to be self-explanatory—who would want to walk back into jail after having been freed? But then I realized that I do have a tendency to return to a prison of rules—because they are familiar and it is easy to point, full of pride, to their ‘refinement’ in my life. I often surround myself and my family with inflexible rules—the right way to do laundry, what to eat, when to rest, the correct way to address others. If those rules are not followed, you can see the impatience seething within me. “You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?” Gal. 5:7. Jesus didn’t suffer and die to free me only to enslave me to another set of rules that become the focus—the idol. He freed me so I could be absorbed searching after God’s heart. “Faith working through love” is Jesus’ goal for us (Gal. 5:6).

It is important to note that Christ’s mandate is not to feel love, but to work, to act in love. In the same way, patience is an action, not a feeling. My husband said he thought I am incredibly patient. I looked at him as if he had two heads. Me? Are you talking to the same person that feels like ants are crawling under her skin when for the 100th time I have to remind one of our children to do something correctly? I know I am going to feel the ‘ants’ of impatience, but I don’t have to follow their leading. If I am running by the Spirit, producing fruit, there is no time or room for the deeds of the flesh.

Running with you,
Rebecca

Radical Freedom

Sister,

“Choose Freedom!”  I said to my fifteen-month-old daughter Annabelle as she once again reached out to play with the computer cords.  I had already begun training her not to grab the cords in the house, as they can be dangerous if pulled and yanked.  She looked back at me slyly as her chubby fingers barely grazed the cords.  “No Annabelle,” I said to her quietly.  She continued to stare me down while carefully caressing the cords.  I could see her little mind wrestling between her perceived freedom of touching and grabbing everything she desired, and the real freedom of obeying her mom.

Aren’t we all like this?  We truly think that freedom is doing whatever we want when we want.  But in fact, that is anarchy and chaos.  If everyone does what is right in their own eyes, societal orders collapse and individual freedoms soon follow.

So, how can we choose freedom?  Freedom implies that we are a slave to something.  One thing all of humanity has in common is that we are a slave to sin.  No matter what country you are from, no matter who your parents are, no matter what age or maturity level you have obtained, you are a slave to sin.  The Bible teaches that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 6:23a).  Annabelle knew she was not allowed to touch the cords, yet she was compelled to touch them because she is a sinner.  Me too!  I know I should be patient with her and my husband but how quickly I choose impatience and anger.  The Bible also says that the wages, or cost of this sin (disobedience to God), is death.  DEATH.  Death is no joking matter.  Scripture describes death as a real place, hell.  Hell is where God pours his wrath down on sinners.  There is fire, gnashing of teeth, and separation from all that is good and right, God.  We are a slave to THIS!  THIS sin that God will punish in eternal hell.  Stop and sit on this fact for a bit.  The longer you think about how completely hopeless, painful, and abhorrent God’s wrath in hell is, the sweeter the freedom of Christ will be to you.

The rest of Romans 6:23 says, “But the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”  He died for us when we were still sinners (Rom 5:8).  When believer’s eyes are opened to the utter slavery of their sin and the freedom that came through faith in Christ, our joy abounds!  We have been set free from the ultimate penalty of sin and have the ultimate freedom of heaven!  I can hear you now, “but I still sin!”  “I still want to touch the cords!”  “I am still impatient!”  Yes, we still have our moments of desiring perceived freedom, but real freedom is walking in the righteousness that Christ has already given us.

So sweet sister, no matter where you are in life, there is freedom for you.  If you have not yet put your trust in Jesus, you can have the freedom from the ultimate penalty of sin.  Trust that He paid the price for your sin by dying on the cross and rising again!  He took on your filthy sin and put His righteousness on you instead!  What an amazing gift of freedom!  And fellow sister in Christ, you are free to walk in His righteousness!  Your righteousness is not based on what you do or don’t do.  Your freedom does not rely on your good or bad works, it relies on Christ alone!  So be radically free!  This gospel is for you!  There is freedom in obeying Christ!

~Colleen