Mar 26 Expressways

Mar 26

Expressways

Heb 12:1 …and let us run with patience

the race that is set before us

“I want it all, and I want it now!”  What a perfect way to describe our modern day world. The time saving gadgets in our lives have become our masters. The need for instant everything has infected our way of thinking so that we are depressed when we have to do things the old slow way.

But our verse for today speaks of patience. The common old joke is “I want patience and I want it now!”  Perhaps that is because we see patience as a long slow process, but our verse talks of racing and patience in the same sentence. How can that be? Running a race is not about how fast you can go, but how you pace yourself. If you follow auto racing you have seen the driver who leads most of the race lose before the finish line because he ran out of fuel. There is a lot of truth in the hair and the tortoise story. The slow turtle wins because the fast rabbit stopped to rest.

That story is not about going as slow as a turtle as opposed to racing like a rabbit. It is about slow and steady wins the race. Today’s world seems to force us into expressway kind of thinking. Even expressways are not fast enough. The speed limit is 70 on most expressways and we have all been passed by people doing way more than the limit. I was driving on an expressway on a Sunday morning in downtown Chicago. I was in the slow lane and doing 85 to stay with the traffic flow. The speed limit was 55. Suddenly a cop car came down an entrance ramp, pulled onto the expressway right behind me, and then flew past me at who knows what speed. 30 miles over the limit and it was seen as normal! You may have seen the same situation when driving because we live in a hurry scurry society.

There isn’t space to list all the instant things in our world today. There used to be one telephone in a house, now people wear the phone on their ear.  Fast food isn’t fast enough. We want them to hand it out the window so we don’t have to take time to go inside to eat. We can’t wait until the evening news so we now have 24 hour news. Ditto for weather. Cooking takes too long so grocery stores sell us food they have cooked  or prepared. 

Now are these convenience items bad? No, not in themselves. What is bad is the loss of patience for things that require time. God is not in a hurry and learning spiritual lessons sometimes takes time. There is no shortcut to spiritual maturity. Perhaps that explains why so many Christians have not grown to their full potential spiritually. There is no drive up window for maturity. No 30 second instant box of spiritual understanding. No “instant on” of Bible knowledge.

When I taught computers at a college I had a student who was unhappy. She said she wanted to do advanced graphic design and “the real complicated stuff on computers”. I asked her to do something very basic but when she was unable to she complained, “I don’t want to waste my time learning all the simple stuff, I want to know how to do the really advanced computer things.”  She wanted to learn how to run without first learning to crawl or walk.

I  sometimes talk with Christians who want to discuss far out prophetic interpretations from Daniel, Ezekiel and Revelation, yet they have not applied some of the most basic concepts required for spiritual maturity.

2Pe 1:5 tells us to be diligent and add to our faith; virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brother kindness, and charity. So how are we doing in this area? How is your Bible knowledge. That requires actually reading the Bible, and that is not an instant task. Some kids at a Bible School did a marathon reading of the Bible, and read in turns nonstop. I think it took them about 44 hours or something like that to complete the reading of the Bible. If we would read it once a year it would be wonderful.

Then after knowledge comes temperance. (Moderation in all things.).  The list continues and ends with Charity. Modern Bibles substitute the word ”love” for charity. Charity encompasses so much more than just love. But even with that crippled definition I see people who are self-deceived. I hear them talk about loving people when it is obvious they have not mastered brotherly kindness.

Developing a mature Christian character is not something done in a microwave in 30 seconds. But as the Chinese say, a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. It would be good for us all to pause, that means stop multitasking for a few seconds, and slowly read down through the verses from 2 Peter. Stop at each one and ask “How am I doing with this one”.  Peter continues after the list with these words.

2Pe 1:9 But he that lacketh these things is blind,

and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten

that he was purged from his old sins.           

Ouch!! I need to review the list. Perhaps you do too!

2Pe 1:5 ¶ And beside this, giving all diligence,

add to your faith virtue;

and to virtue knowledge;

 6 And to knowledge temperance;

 and to temperance patience;

and to patience godliness;

 7 And to godliness brotherly kindness;

and to brotherly kindness charity.