By: Pastor Al
What are you feeling now that you have been following the “stay at home” orders of the government for over five weeks? It would not be surprising that you are getting that squeezed in feeling. Your world has shrunk. The rooms in your home may be closing in. Finding worthwhile things to do is becoming more challenging. If your employment or business has been curtailed, you feel the financial pinch. If you are a child or teenager, you feel isolated from friends and teachers. Electronic games are becoming stale from overuse. Boredom sets in, and you feel at loose ends.
What we are going through can be described in various ways. I tend to think that many are suffering something akin to the emotional disorder called claustrophobia. According to one medical news website, claustrophobia is “an anxiety disorder that causes an intense fear of enclosed spaces.” It is that feeling which can come over a person undergoing an MRI, having one’s full body encased in a long tube for over a half-hour. Anxiety builds, and you want to say, “get me out of here!”
We may experience this in various degrees. I have to admit that I struggle with that feeling to some extent. I want to go places and see family members and friends. I want to go to church to worship and to fellowship with my brothers and sisters in Christ. I want to visit those dear members who have to spend so much time alone. I grieve the loss of all that we freely enjoyed just several weeks ago.
And the element of fear creeps into my soul when I wonder how long this state of affairs will last. When can we freely move about again? Will we be able to take the vacations which we planned? Many wonder how long they will be employed or whether schools will open in the fall.
The increasing duration of our isolation and the uncertainty of the future ramps up our fear and thereby heightens the claustrophobic sensation. Undoubtedly what we are all going through is trying. We don’t like it. We want to break out of it, much like we would if we were locked in a box.
But we know that we are in this situation by the sovereign will of God, and as God’s people we have to ask, how does God want us to handle it? We are not the first people to be in trying times. And as we read our Bibles, we hear God telling us what he expects from us at such times.
One of the key virtues that He is looking for is patience. I have to be honest to say that I find myself giving this instruction some push back. I don’t like to wait, not in a check-out line or for warmer weather. That may be due to my spiritual immaturity still. Generally speaking, young children are impatient. When babies are hungry, they will cry till they’re fed. If children are promised candy, they want it now. As God’s Spirit does His work in us, He trains us in patience. Perhaps that is one of the greatest spiritual qualities God is teaching us in these times. If so, He must consider it to be of great value in the people He is forming in the image of Christ.
Patience requires waiting. But patience is more than just waiting. Waiting in itself has little purpose. The way the Bible speaks of patience it means having the ability to wait for the good to come when no good is evident.
James uses the illustration of the farmer (James 5: 7-11). The farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop. He plants his seed. The crop is not visible at all. And it won’t be until the proper time. So the farmer has patience as he looks for the rains to come and the sun to shine so his crop can grow. If by the first of August, he looks over his corn field and doesn’t see any ears on the stalks, he doesn’t throw up his hands in dismay thinking he won’t get a crop. He knows he must wait.
What is this Spirit-borne patience made of? First of all, patience involves the exercise of faith. By faith, one acknowledges that God is sovereign over all and that even the adverse circumstances come not by chance but are directed by His Fatherly hand.
Faith then gives one steadfast determination to cling to God and submit to His will. It spares us from groping in confusion and gives us the peace to know that our loving God is in control when things seem so out of control. As Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith refuses to draw final conclusions based on how things appear at the present time.
Furthermore, faith looks to God as our caring and sympathetic Father who never forsakes His children. These words of Psalm 103:13 are so assuring: As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. Likewise, the Lord Jesus speaks these endearing words to His anxiety-prone people: Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? These precious promises are for us as much as they were for those who heard them the first time, and they are not nullified by a menacing virus or anything else.
So, we must hear God speak to us as our Heavenly Father, trust Him, and always keep our eyes open to see His goodness in the blessings which are there for us each day. By doing so, we will likely breathe easier, enjoy rest of soul and freedom of spirit – all of which yields the fruit of patience.
Faith, therefore, is an essential component of patience. There are other components which we will consider later.
Here are a couple of verses for personal meditation:
Psalm 62: 5-8
For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence,
for my hope is from him.
6 He only is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
7 On God rests my salvation and my glory;
my mighty rock, my refuge is God.
8 Trust in him at all times, O people;
Pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us.
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!