Tag: patience

Posted on

How Do I Make Growing in Joy Part of My Very Busy Life?

I believe God wants us to experience a lot more joy and peace than we generally do. He made us to be a people of joy and peace, and He redeems us to experience His love in a way that fills us with joy and peace (Romans 15:13). Recently, when I shared this with a friend, she asked me, “How in the world do I fit pursuit of joy and peace into my extremely busy life? I already feel overwhelmed!”

Before I give some advice on that, let me just reiterate that I don’t think that joy is something that is an optional add-on for the Christian life. It’s right at the heart of the kingdom. “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17). This is rooted in our creation. We are created to experience joy in God as our highest goal. The Westminster Shorter Catechism begins, “What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” Joy is what it’s all about.

In addition, there is a connection between joy and all our other duties and responsibilities. If we are filled with joy, we can serve more readily and more easily. We can be more efficient. A sorrowful, heavy heart keeps us from moving forward. The more joy we can feel, the more easily we can move.

So, how do we do it?

First, remember that joy is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and it is readily available to all who ask.

Second, ask for the gift. Begin your day with even a brief meditation on God and His goodness. Think of how He made you, takes care of you, loves you, redeems you, and is present with you to guide you, lead you, and comfort you. Then, pray for your day and ask God to fill you with His joy. Do this every day.

Third, schedule some time for thoughtful reflection, even if it’s only 10 minutes a week. When you do that, ask, What kept me from joy and peace this week? Then ask, how could I have thought differently about that situation or seen God’s goodness in a way that would have enabled me to continue to experience joy? Finally, write down what your thought is or record it in mp3 on your phone, just some way in which you can review it.

This third point is the key practice. I find that there are two ways that can really help you thoughtfully reflect on your life. The first is to write down what happened, to journal. I think this is best because it provides a record of where you’ve been. The second is to talk about it with someone you trust, i.e., verbal processing. You can do both or either. The key is to do it.

Fourth, keep doing it.

And that’s it. If you do these things week by week, I think you’ll be surprised how much progress you will make in a year and how much God will work in your life.

_________

Note: see a fuller discussion of these issues in my article, “Why So Little Joy and Peace in Believers?”

Photo by mauro mora on Unsplash

Posted on

Can We Change for the Better?

Can people who are fearful become courageous? Can those who are impatient become patient? Can the joyless become joyful?

To that, I answer an emphatic “yes!!!”

Here’s why I think this is true. First, I studied family systems over the past couple of years. I read many stories of people who were able to function differently in the challenging emotional environment of their family. It was hard, but they did it.

Second, I studied the Greek and Roman philosophers. Through the study of philosophy, many people were able to change for the better. They could learn to live by principle rather than by whim or reacting to emotional pressure.

Third, people train their emotions and will in many areas of life. People can learn to keep their body moving forward in the face of great danger. The philosopher Seneca described this well: “[T]he body can be trained to such a degree of endurance that it will stand the blows and kicks of several opponents at once and to such a degree that a man can last out the day and resist the scorching sun in the midst of the burning dust, drenched all the while with his own blood . . .” (Letters, LXXX).

He then goes on to ask: “[I]f this can be done, how much more easily might the mind be toughened so that it could receive the blows of Fortune and not be conquered, so that it might struggle to its feet again after it has been laid low, after it has been trampled under foot?” (Ibid., emphasis mine). In other words, can we not change our mindset to be able to keep moving forward in the face of great difficulties and disappointments?

As a Christian, why do I not argue for change from Christ transforming people? I certainly believe in the power of God in the lives of individuals. I have observed it in my own life and the life of countless others. I find, however, that many people underestimate what God can do because they don’t see that change is possible in ordinary life. In other words, if people can change so much without Christ, how much with Him?

So, “Great,” you might say, “some people changed. But how can I do it? How can I change?”

The first thing to recognize is that it is hard work. This is true in the realm of nature and the realm of grace. Sometimes, there is supernatural intervention that radically transforms people, but more often than not, it takes hard work. God uses hard work to transform people (Phil. 2:12-13, 2 Peter 1:5).

But what kind of hard work? John Ortberg in one of his talks at a conference called Living in Christ’s Presence asked the people attending that conference, “How many of you could run a marathon right now?” There were a couple. Then, he asked, “How many of you could run a marathon if you tried harder?” Of course, no new people raised their hands. Often, we think that change is a matter of trying harder. It is not. It is about the right training over a long period of time.

This is more than a loose analogy. The Apostle Paul used the word used for training in the gymnasium in his day and said, “Train yourself to be godly” (1 Tim. 4:7-8).

What does this training look like? In sum, developing virtue involves a changed mindset implemented in action over time that becomes a habit or character trait.

How would this work? let’s take patience as an example. Ask some questions of yourself: what are the circumstances in which you act impatiently? Does impatience help you? What are the results? What are you afraid of that causes you to be impatient? Developing a better mindset includes confronting a wrong mindset.

The positive side is to impress on your mind the better ways of thinking. To discover that you can ask questions like, what helps me be more patient? What thought or mindset has helped me be more patient in the past? What would be the positive benefit of patience? And so on.

Then, you need to practice. Put yourself in situations where you will need to be patient. Try to slow down and be OK with with it. Most of us have opportunities for this every single day: driving. We can work on being patient while we drive.

Over time, such work will begin to take effect. That doesn’t mean you’ll be perfect or problem-free. It just means you’ll get better.

That’s virtue training, training for excellence of character.

I believe that we don’t have to settle for where we have been in the past. I believe change is possible. God has given us everything we need for a godly life. We just need to step out in faith and start moving. His power, promises, and presence will be with us every step of the way.

Posted on

The Good of Waiting


Homer Simpson once told his children, “Now we play the waiting game. . . . Ahh, the waiting game sucks. Let’s play Hungry Hungry Hippos!” And that’s pretty much how our society views waiting (as the commercial above illustrates).

To some degree, our society is right in this. As American humorist Evan Esar put it: “All things come to him who waits, but they are mostly leftovers from those who didn’t wait.”

We should be active not passive. We should not wait for life to happen. We should make things happen.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow described this powerfully in his poem, “A Psalm of Life”:

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

This is a poem about doing, acting now and not waiting. The poem, however, ends in a tantalizing way:

Let us, then, be up and doing,
with a heart for any fate;
still achieving, still pursuing,
learn to labor and to wait.

Learning to wait. It’s as if Longfellow understood that as much as we want to act, waiting is a part of life.

In fact, we wait all the time. We have to wait to get our driver’s license, to get married, to have children, to find out what job(s) we will have, to see how our children will turn out. When things change or collapse around us, a new start eventually arrives, but it often takes time.

In the Bible, waiting is not only part of life, God makes us wait. The whole Bible, in a sense, is about waiting. In the Old Testament, people are waiting for the Messiah to come. In the New Testament, people are waiting for the Messiah to return.

When Jesus went into heaven, he told His followers to wait for the Holy Spirit. Why didn’t the Holy Spirit come right away? They had to wait 10 days before the Holy Spirit came? That’s not that long, but why not right away?

These biblical facts indicate that waiting is not a necessary evil. It is good. But what good could there be? Consider:

1. Waiting builds anticipation.

When my wife leaves and goes to the store, I’m happy to see her return. However, when she goes away for a week, the anticipation of her return builds throughout the week. By the time she returns, I have a new appreciation for her and greatly anticipate her return, making our reunion all the sweeter. The waiting built the anticipation.

2. Waiting enhances enjoyment.

One thing I have done this past year is try to do fasting, purely for health not religious reasons (though I do believe in fasting for religious reasons). I tried to do at least one 24 hour fast (lunch to lunch) each week. By the time I got to the lunch that ended the fast, I was more excited than normal to sit down and enjoy the food. I felt like I was feasting because I had been fasting. Waiting enhances enjoyment.

3. Waiting builds strength.

Waiting is saying “no” to present good in order to experience something good later. When we say “no” to present good, we become stronger. We learn to live without. Pleasures have less control of us, and we become more self-controlled. When we trust that God will give us good things in the future that we don’t see now, we build more dependence on God and less dependence on things. That’s how waiting builds strength.

4. Waiting engenders gratitude.

When you move to a new place, you have to build new relationships. This takes time. As you wait, you feel lonely. During this time, you can take stock of who is currently in your life, who has been in your life, and who could be in your life. As you feel lonely, you realize how good it is to experience the blessing of love and friendship. You become grateful for what you actually have, and so waiting engenders gratitude.

5. Waiting awakens desire.

I talked to a gentleman recently who had lost his parents at a young age. This was a terrible event for him and extremely difficult. However, what it did do was make him realize what a good thing he had in his parents. This awakened his desire for community and made him more ready to embrace it wherever he could find it. The lack made him desire something all the more.

Waiting is rarely easy and sometimes extremely hard. However, it does promote virtues that enable us to grow as individuals in a way that few other things can. If we can see that waiting has good in it, then the next time we have to wait, we will be better equipped to embrace it and let it have its work. As the prophet Isaiah put it, “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” (40:31).

Posted on

What the Bible Says About Leading Well

God is leading. He is bringing redemption and restoration to the world.

And God leads through leaders. He gives them a vision to lead people from where they are to where they could and should be.

So, the first question in leading is, where do I want to lead people? The next question is, how do I get them there?

One of my favorite summaries of the principles of leadership is in the Bible in 1 Thessalonians 5:14. Here’s what it says: “And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone.”

This passage teaches us three crucial leadership principles for leading well. In the diagram above, these are principles for moving people along the arrow to where the “there.”

1. The leader needs to do the hard thing.
The word translated “idle and disruptive” refers to someone who has gotten out of line in a military formation. The leader has to confront those persons and things that are keeping people from moving in the right direction. Continue reading “What the Bible Says About Leading Well”

Proudly powered by WordPress