Happy New Year to all! It is indeed a new year, and I’m hoping to be consistent with posting some thought-provoking missives here and there. So let’s start off the year causing some trouble.
The beginning of the New Year is a time when people look to start over. Of course, we’re all familiar with the resolutions for losing weight, quitting smoking, saving money, being a better student, and other well-meaning thoughts. I’ve decided to engage in a little experiment concerning prayer for the next 40 days. I consider it a jumpstart for my prayer life. Admittedly, the experiment is a little self-serving, in the sense that I have a lot of things requiring God’s leadership and wisdom. That being said, without necessarily announcing the extent of the experiment, I’ve asked a few friends and acquaintances as to something for which I could pray on their behalf. Such was not the case with one friend, and thus the trouble-starting begins. Let me explain.
A friend e-mailed me today to share her reaction to God revealing certain things to her. Her thoughts overflowed in several e-mails that it made it hard to reply to any one of them, due to the stream of thought that was rapidly spilling from her. Somewhere in the midst of her stream, I sent her an e-mail stating that I would pray that God would grant her patience to wait for His Will to pass and give her greater clarity concerning her circumstances and what He’s doing in the midst of such. My exact words were:
“I will be praying for you to gain even greater clarity on the things that God has placed on your heart and that you will be patient as He works on and through you. “
Though I didn’t ask her to be a part of this 40-day experiment, I thought I would indirectly include her by adding her to the prayer list.
I think most people would agree that my suggested prayer request was/is pretty innocuous. She didn’t think so. I got rebuffed for my suggestion of prayer for her patience. At this point, I injected the following into the conversation:
“How funny! Patience is a fruit of the Spirit, and yet you ask that I don’t pray for something that God desires to develop in you as proof of His Spirit’s control over your life! Interesting… ;-)”
I had Galatians 5:22-23 in mind as I wrote those words.
I got the following response verbatim (spelling and grammar are left intact):
“No, I ask for the wisdom, in my opinion. When you pray for patient he starts to test that. I have been tested all this year, because I prayed for it. I would rather have the knowledge and wisdom…”
I then asserted that patience is an application of wisdom.
“Perhaps you’ve never made this connection before, but patience is an application of wisdom. God’s wisdom may dictate that you need to wait on a certain matter to be resolved or clarified. To pursue the wise decision is to wait. So what does it mean to wait if that is what Wisdom commands? It means you must be patient.”
I then received another e-mail, seemingly suggesting that my prayer on her behalf was similar to others who’ve tried to dictate how her relationship with Christ should be. Basically, she indirectly asserted that I couldn’t understand her request that I pray for wisdom, and therefore I didn’t understand her.
To borrow Seann William Scott’s line from Role Models (watch the trailer and you’ll get the joke): “WHHHAAAAAAAAT?!?!”
I say all of the above not with the intention of publicly flogging my friend in some way. However, her apparent resistance to my prayer request on her behalf got me thinking: what’s wrong with praying for patience?
Again, if patience is such a bad thing, why is this one of the fruits of the Spirit? Why does God want to produce this in the life of Christians? Moreover, why would a Christian reject such a prayer for such a thing as God desires?
In her penultimate response, she included the following thought:
“…And it says everything that I need to do [is] in his word.”
It was at this juncture that I backed off with discussing the matter further. I concluded my communication with a single-line blessing upon her and went on my way.
Without sounding harsh, I would suggest that my friend do a little more research into what the Word says regarding patience.
Beyond patience (“longsuffering” or “forbearance”, as it reads in older translations) being a fruit of the Spirit, the Apostle Peter asserts in 2 Peter 1:6 that we should seek to add patience to the foundation of faith we have in Christ. Paul begs us to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we’ve been called, as written in Ephesians 4:1-3. One trait of that walk is patience (see verse 3). Moreover, as a result of being chosen by God, Paul asserts we should be patient with one another, learning to put up with each other (see Col. 3:12-13). Again, Paul, in 1 Thess. 5:14, asserts that we should be patient with everyone. As always, read these verses in context. Above these things, the Scriptures tell much about the patience of God. I would argue that conforming to the image of Christ carries with it the development of patience.
What’s even funnier is that my friend asserts that she’s not ready for some of the things that she believes God has revealed. She believes that there are things that God must do in her life before she can receive the blessings. Thus, she must WAIT! And what does this mean??? She has to be patient!! So is not my prayer in accordance with her circumstance? With regard to the few Scriptures I’ve shared above (and there are many more that talk about patience), is not my prayer in line with God’s Will?
So what if you get tested. Is that not an opportunity to prove the presence of God’s Spirit and the character of Christ in your life?
Personally speaking, as I pray for God to reveal His Will concerning my future spouse, I pray that He would give me patience. I need it so that I won’t succumb to the counterfeits that may come my way. I need patience to deal with the temptations that will try to get me to compromise. If I truly believe that God will reveal and prepare one special heart for me, that belief will get tested; it should be tested. To me, the matter isn’t about the woman; it’s about how much (or little) I trust God.
I guess on this matter, I must be patient with my friend while she waits for God’s wisdom. Let’s hope that she doesn’t have to wait too long; otherwise, she might need some patience. And hopefully God won’t take too long with my prayer experiment either! Ha!
Filed under: Christianity, Commentary, Opinions
Hi there!
Thanks for inviting me to your blog some weeks back. I’ve been meaning to say that.
Reading about your friend reminds me of times when I have hurt and how the enemy has tried to use me to self-distract from my own quest for Christ. I recall realizing just how often we, as Christians, forget the basics: The goal of Christianity is not to live a pain-free life; the goal of Christianity is to seek Christ-likeness through which we will achieve a pain-free life. When we expect the former more than we aspire to seek the latter, we get into vicious cycles of disappointment and misunderstanding. As Christians, we have to mature to the point at which we rejoice even in tribulation; that’s when we pass the test. Romans 5: 3-5 says something about this. I am speaking to myself as well here. Truth is, there is so much stuff going on behind the scenes concerning each of us and our futures. Stuff that we don’t even know about. Stuff that only God sees and God knows. We might as well trust Him!
I’m going to go out on a limb, and say that I believe your friend knows that you are right. Patience is a virtue that requires no justification to a fellow Christian. Your friend’s knowledge, at this time, is merely distracted by hurt or something else. Give her time. Your desire to pray for her has sincere intentions. But she has to stand in agreement with it before God. She has to come to that place of clarity on her own with God. It sounds like He has been trying to teach her patience already. In which case, He knows she needs it. Let her seek the wisdom she wants. As you may have mentioned, it is infact through wisdom that she will realize that He wants her to be patient.
One last thing… don’t let your heart be troubled. God WILL take care of her and He WILL give her what she needs. My prayer this evening is for your protection from distraction during your 40-day communion with God. If there is one thing I’m learning, it’s that the enemy favors using good people to sneak up on other good people in attempta to distract both of them during their quest for Christ-likeness.
Be blessed!