Tag Archives: fruit of the Spirit

Patience Right Now

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The fruit of the Spirit is . . . patience.

My children were small, and I was impatient and irritable. So much so that I didn’t like myself sometimes. So of course I prayed for patience. That’s what you do, right? Ha ha.

Years went by before I finally learned that “being patient” doesn’t mean letting the children disobey and disobey while you stand by, smiling placidly and speaking gently. Instead, those gentle words should accompany a swift correction.

So I came to find out that I didn’t even really understand what patience was.

Our modern way of thinking about patience always embodies two attributes: Calmness, and Passive Inactivity. But that’s not how it is in the Bible.

One day my dear friend Heidi described how she had importuned God for six months to topple an idol in her heart. The day finally came when He smashed it and fully delivered her. Afterwards, she read Psalm 40, which begins, “I waited patiently for the Lord.”

She said, “That whole psalm is true about me, except the first verse. I did not wait patiently. I wanted Him to change me NOW.”

But many psalms say something like, “How long, O Lord?” So I looked and found that the Hebrew word in that verse was the same as the one before it: “wait.” So David is saying something like, “I waited and waited.”

“Oh, I definitely waited and waited!” said Heidi. “It was excruciating at times. But I kept asking, because I knew God would respond. And He did it. He did it.”

My soul, wait only on God, for my expectation is from Him.

Even in the New Testament, none of the words for patience imply inaction, and some don’t even imply calmness. They imply determined resolve, based on a rugged confidence, like Heidi’s. A blazing hope that God will do what we know we cannot do ourselves.

The seed on the good ground are those who, with an excellent and good heart, hear the Word and hold fast to it, bearing fruit with patience.

Romans 5 reminds me that because of Jesus Christ and His grace and glory, I can rejoice even in the very hard times of life. I will wait for Him, hope in Him, trust in Him, with determined resolve, because I have nowhere else to turn.

If we confidently hope for that which we cannot see, then we wait for it with patience.

And Romans 5 says that I will most surely see Him accomplish great things in me and for me, which gives me a fierce hope for His continued work, by His love in me through the power of the Holy Spirit.

If I pray for patience, because, well, I really just want to be a nicer person, I want to have an easier life, am I not failing to see the big picture? Isn’t this just one more way of focusing on the Screen?

When I look beyond, when I rejoice in the midst of the tribulations of life, because I expect God to do a mighty work for His glory, won’t I find that the determined resolve I need, based on a strong confidence, will be mine?

A woman like me complained about her need for patience with her children. “Oh, madam,” said Watchman Nee, “it is not patience that you need. It is Christ.”

Don’t focus on the patience you don’t have. Focus on the Savior you do have. And find that the Biblical patience to trust Him with determined resolve springs naturally, like fruit, out of your life.

How can I be pleasing to God?

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Though I’m not big on controversy, I aroused some when I guest blogged on a friend’s website. Ostensibly about church attendance, the underlying question was one I’ve thought about, pondered, and prayed over many times and much over the past months and years: How can I please God in my day-to-day life?

The Bible describes actions that are pleasing to God. Does that mean that He’s always checking up on me to see how well I’m doing them? That I’m gaining His smile or His frown based on my efforts rather than on what Christ has done?

The thought was abhorrent to me even before I fully understood it or could put it into words. How can I say that my efforts (be they church attendance or something else) are pleasing to God if they don’t spring out of faith in Jesus Christ? After all, Enoch pleased God not because of his efforts but because of his intimate relationship in faith. Because without faith it is IMPOSSIBLE to please God.

So I’m posting here some of what I wrote at the very end of that post on my friend’s website.

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Can a woman who has a sterile relationship with her husband decide that she’s going to produce a baby to please him? She could produce a lifeless doll (dead works brought forth out of dead faith) and pretend that it’s a baby. Maybe many people around her will even pretend along with her, because they’re all carrying their own lifeless dolls. Maybe that’s all they know.

But the real baby, the fruit of the womb, will be produced when the wife gives herself fully to her husband in joyful, trusting submission, in that intimate trusting relationship born of mutual love. The loving husband is pleased, really pleased, in that intimate relationship. Then, ultimately, the husband is pleased in the beautiful fruit born out of that intimate relationship: a living, breathing human being. Living works produced by living faith.

Though there is effort involved in having a baby (just as there is effort involved in the outworking of the Christian life), a woman cannot produce that fruit of the womb in her own strength: that fruit of her life is a gift of God. Just so, the fruit of my life that is well-pleasing to God is the works that are born out of my intimate, loving, trusting faith relationship with Jesus Christ, “Christ in you.” The Holy Spirit of Christ works within me to grow this fruit, to bring forth these natural works.

Those works, those living works, pouring out of a life of intoxicating love, result in a sweet savor in the nostrils of God. This isn’t because I have produced them from my own efforts, it isn’t because I try to discern the will of God and then try to carry it out. Instead, it’s because they spring out naturally, produced from the intimate relationship of mutual love.

Though church attendance or any other effort might ultimately be wood, hay, stubble or a filthy rag, my confidence can rest assured in the truth that in Christ my life really can be pleasing to God.

So where’s the fruit? Thoughts on John 15 and the sower and seed

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“I want more fruit, Lord. I want much fruit.” My prayer ran more or less along the lines of that vague reference to John 15. It was summer, and my parents’ blueberry bushes groaned with fruit. I was jealous. In the Love of Christ, my roots ran as deep as those. Of the Water of Life I drank long and often. Yes, I have fruit, but I’m hungry for more. Where is it?

As is commonly the case with these Hard Questions, I prayed and pondered for a while before receiving an answer. Then somewhere I heard a brief reference to the sower and the seed, my favorite of Christ’s parables.

Some seed fell on hard ground, where it couldn’t take root at all. That’s not me. Some fell on good ground, where it brought forth much fruit. That’s the one I want to be.

The seed is the Word of God. The beautiful Word that I meditate on. The Word that gives me joy.

Some fell among rocks, which kept the roots from going deep. No, I knew my roots went deep.

But there was one other. The one in the thorny ground. One afternoon while I was resting and meditating on the vast ocean of my Savior’s goodness, it came to my mind. Honestly, I had never fully distinguished the rocky soil from the thorny soil, because well, they were just both bad. But now, for the first time, I thought about how the rocks affected the plant at the root. But the thorns, what did they do? They affected the plant at the neck. The thorns choked the Word of God that it would . . . become unfruitful.

As soon as those Words came to me, my eyes flew open. The Lord had shown me something hugely important.

I knew the parable well enough to know the reasons. The cares of this world . . . and the deceitfulness of riches . . . and wasn’t there another one? My fingers ran to read it for myself in Matthew 13. No other words there. . . . over to the parallel account in Mark 4. The lusts of other things. These are what choke the Word of God and cause it to become unfruitful.

My immediate heart reaction to these accusations was self-justification. “I don’t think I’m guilty of this one or that one, Lord.” But the Spirit gently communed with my spirit to lovingly rebuke me. “Yes, I want to allow You to show me the thorns, wherever they may be.” Cares of this world . . . even the seemingly good and important things that pull my eyes away from Christ . . . deceitfulness of riches . . . not just money, but the stuff I feel like I need . . . lusts of other things . . . other things besides material things, which covers just about any possibility of any sin in the book.

And so the Lord worked, bringing me to repentance in a variety of ways, bringing me His sweet forgiveness and restoration and even the Lifting Above that He refers to in both the Old and New Testaments.

One evening I rested in His arms before going to sleep, and the riches, the lusts, the cares swirled around me. Especially the cares. But I somehow felt lifted above, and filled with joy in the love of my Savior.

An incident in Hudson Taylor’s life came to mind, when missionaries with his China Inland Mission were having many troubles . . . and there were problems with the Chinese government . . . and he held a huge stack of letters he needed to answer . . . when the cares of this world pulled at him like hundreds of Lilliputians.

And Hudson Taylor laid his hand on the stack of letters and leaned back and closed his eyes and began . . . singing. His favorite hymn.

Jesus I am resting, resting in the joy of what Thou art. I am finding out the secret of Thy loving heart.

John 15. What did Jesus say was the secret of Much Fruit? If you abide in Me and I abide in you. That’s when you’ll bring forth much fruit. That’s when your fruit will last. That’s when you’ll see amazing answers to prayer. That’s when your joy will be full.

What a mysterious and ineffably beautiful thing it is to abide in Him. Jesus, continue to teach me this glorious truth.