WAITING AND ENDURING

 

 

A hyper-Pentecostal, while leading a crusade of many thousands, had boasted, “No one will leave today unchanged.” However, the Christian life is about waiting in hope for something we do not yet possess:

 

·       1 Peter 1:13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation [the return] of Jesus Christ.

 

·       Romans 8:22–24 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?

 

This life will not fulfill our hope. Instead, we must await the Savior’s return:

 

·       Hebrews 13:14 For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.

 

 Abraham waited for 25 years for his promised heir—Isaac. Along the way, he experienced many setbacks. Yet according to God, he was hoping for an eternal city (Hebrews 11:8-10), as Jesus had done:

 

·       Hebrews 12:2–3 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.

 

We too must patiently endure:

 

·       Hebrews 11:27 By faith he [Moses] left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.

 

Endurance requires waiting and courage. It requires us to understand that not all our immediate needs will be met:

 

·       1 Peter 2:19–20 For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.

 

Waiting produces character and endurance:

·       Romans 5:3–5 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

 

Waiting amid suffering also makes us Christlike:

 

·       2 Corinthians 4:10–11 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

 

Western Christians often expect that immediate needs will always be satisfied. Instead, it is according to our Lord’s timing:

 

·       1 Peter 5:6–7,10 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you…And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

 

His work is assured:

 

·       Romans 8:31–32 …If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

 

Therefore, we can wait patiently:

 

·       Psalm 27:13–14 I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living! Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!

 

Therefore, do not be seduced by the false teaching that we can have it all—healings and various blessings here and now. Instead, we are being prepared for eternity:

·       2 Corinthians 4:17–18 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

 

 

 

“TURKEY DAY” OR THANKSGIVING?

I like turkeys, but we need to be thankful. According to Lauren Aaronson thankfulness is great for body and soul. In “Psychology Today” she writes, "Feeling thankful and expressing that thanks makes you happier and heartier." She goes even further: "Call it corny, but gratitude just may be the glue that holds society together."

Aaronson advises us to practice thankfulness: "Just jot down things that make you thankful."

However, if reality does not consent to practice, thankfulness will be short lived. Here’s what I mean. If we are elderly, infirm, terminally ill, and abandoned by all, we really don’t have much to be thankful about. Consequently, practicing thankfulness will be difficult, unless we believe in the bliss of eternal life.

The Psalmists had struggled with thankfulness. Life often became overwhelmingly painful. One Psalmist complained that, when he opened his eyes, he saw that it was the God-haters who were enjoying life and not him.

However, after he had entered the Temple, God enabled him to see the big picture, the picture that included eternity. Then the Psalmist’s tone dramatically changed

·       "Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." (Psalm 73:23-26)

What can compare to this assurance! As we delight in the real thing, we also need to feel sorry for those can’t, those who continually must grasp for the insubstantial substitutes: "Just jot down things that make you thankful."  

Yes, enjoy your turkey, but even more, delight yourself in the One who has provided that ultimate menu for thanksgiving.

Who are we and why are we here?

 

Part of being human is about knowing ourselves, even why we are here. The beloved Jewish philosopher and theologian, Abraham Heschel, asserted this very thing:

• It’s not enough for me to be able to say ‘I am’; I want to know who I am and in relation to whom I live. It is not enough for me to ask questions; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?

Life is filled with suffering and injustice. The innocent become victims in what seems to be a senseless flow of snickering events. These force us to re-ask Heschel’s question – “What am I here for.”

Solomon’s life had been devoted to answering this question:

• I thought to myself, "Look, I have grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge. "Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind. For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. (Ecclesiastes 1:16-18)

As hard as Solomon tried, he was unable to grasp life’s meaning. It was like trying to grasp “the wind.” Instead, his wisdom-quest produced “much sorrow” and “grief.” Why? Normally, he extolled the value of wisdom. However, when it came to grasping ultimate meaning, he was frustrated. He needed to know about the afterlife. Only this knowledge could give him the understanding for which he searched. However, his intellect was unable to pass through the curtain separating this life from the next. From the perspective of his limited wisdom-quest, it appeared that there was no meaning to life:

• For the wise man, like the fool, will not be long remembered; in days to come both will be forgotten. Like the fool, the wise man too must die!  So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. (Ecclesiastes 2:16-21)

Without the confident knowledge of life’s meaning, which requires the big picture, Solomon hated life. However, he wasn’t alone. Even secularists have expressed our utter need for life to having meaning.  Psychologist Arthur Deikman writes:

• Human beings need meaning. Without it they suffer… Western Psychotherapy is hard put to meet human beings’ need for meaning, for it attempts to understand clinical phenomena in a framework based on scientific materialism in which meaning is arbitrary and purpose nonexistent.

According to Deikman, meaning could not merely be subjectively created. For “Western Psychotherapy… purpose [is] nonexistent,” and we are not able to create what is “nonexistent.”  Even the atheist and Christianity-despiser, Frederick Nietzsche, wrote that “He who has a ‘why’ to live for can bear almost any ‘how!’” However, once we reject the afterlife, that “why” becomes unattainable.

Despite all that he possessed, Solomon could not bear life without answering this “why.” This is why the Christian is so blessed! Alluding to Solomon’s perplexity, the Apostle Paul wrote:

• If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. (1 Corinthians 15:19)

• If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." (1 Corinthians 15:32) 

Without heaven, life has no more meaning beyond a mad rush to fulfill ourselves. However, self-fulfillment will not satisfy, even in this life. Suffering is inevitable! How do we deal with it? Paul declared that we can only remain joyous in the hand of suffering as we look beyond it:

• I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18)

It is only the fragrance of our confidence in the next life that will enable us to look beyond the suffering. Why then are we here? It is eternity’s boot-camp!