Tag Archives: Galatians

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.

“Pronoun Trouble” in Galatians 5:16-17

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One of the most important principles of Biblical interpretation that I ever learned had to do with pronoun trouble. (If you right-click that link and start watching at second :25, you’ll see what I mean.)

The way I had learned, by osmosis and example, was: “If a passage of Scripture has a pronoun in it (you or I or he or we or pretty much any of them), then you can and even should apply it to yourself.” Unless of course it’s ludicrous to do it, like that holy kiss stuff.

But one day when I was researching something unrelated, I stumbled across an explanation that seems obvious now, but was revolutionary to me at the time. The writer said, essentially, “The pronouns in Scripture refer to certain people of that time. They may or may not refer to us.” For example, when Paul says “we,” he’s referring to himself and maybe Timothy or maybe the people he’s writing to or maybe the Jewish nation or maybe someone else. Is he talking about me? Well, maybe and maybe not. That takes prayerful Holy Spirit discernment to figure out, in the context of the writing.

What about when Paul says “you,” like, say . . . in Galatians 5:16-17? “The flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, and these things are contrary to one another, so that you cannot do what you wish.”

He is definitely referring to the Galatians, because that’s who he’s writing to. But is he referring to all Christians? This is the way I’ve always heard it presented.

But oh really? Is he also referring to all Christians in chapter 3 when he says, “Who has bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth?”  It’s the same “you,” isn’t it? But I’ve never heard this passage applied to all Christians. Probably because it’s preceded by “foolish Galatians.” However, the context of Galatians makes it clear that the “foolish Galatians” are also the “you” of chapter 5 verse 16-17.

If Paul’s original recipients are no longer living, though, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any “foolish Galatians” in the world today. Anybody who fits the shoe he describes in this epistle should wear it. Is there a Christian who, after coming to Christ initially by faith alone, is now trying to live by the efforts of the flesh? Is there a Christian who is going back to the Old Testament Law after the Law has been completely fulfilled in Christ? Then he is a foolish Galatian, and he had better take heed to the prophecy of inevitable warring of the flesh and the spirit that will inevitably result in failure.

Do all Christians live continuously in this realm of constant defeat? No. Some, like Paul, have by the power of the Resurrection found their way out of Romans 7 into Romans 8. Some, as he states in Galatians 5:18, are not under the Law, because they are led by the Spirit. Some have seen Jesus Christ as the Complete Fulfilment of their Complete Righteousness, and have found freedom and joy in this complete salvation. For them, the works of the flesh will not be made evident, as Galatians 5:19 says they were for those people.

Instead, life will be more like II Corinthians 2:14: “Thanks to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumph, and by us makes evident everywhere the aroma of His knowledge.”

So who’s the “us” in that verse? Is it all Christians? What do you think?