Impatience is racing at misery full speed.
Richelle E. Goodrich, Slaying Dragons
Americans are by far some of the most patient people on earth… said no one ever.
I’m in a men’s Bible study group. Yesterday we were discussing how to be impeccable with our words. Essentially we were asking questions of when does busting each other’s chops go over the line and become more of a personal jab. There were a handful of anecdotal stories where we didn’t live up to our good intentions. Myself and another guy mentioned how we stupidly flip people off when someone cuts us off in traffic. We tried to justify it as righteous indignation, but couldn’t find a single damn verse in scripture to cherry-pick for our social justice. Hate when scripture doesn’t conform to my driving needs.
This morning I continued thinking about the discussion while reading 2 Kings 21, an Old Testament book, and not exactly a page-turner. 1 and 2 Kings are basically a 340-yr timeline of the leaders of the Northern and Southern kingdoms of Israel. No need to get super-Biblical, since it quickly goes above my pay-grade as a non-scholar. The primary theme is how God is faithful even during some wretched leadership by the majority of the Kings after David and Solomon.
What grabbed me about 2 Kings 21 was the mention of Manasseh becoming king at the age of twelve, and ruling for 55 years. My eyes bug out at the idea of a little punko 6th-grader ruling a nation, even if he was like Lady Mormont in GoT, which he wasn’t. What stood out is the the timeline of 55 years. We don’t have patience for waiting. A crap King ruling for 55 years would be dreadful. But bad leadership or corrupt government is not my point. Grrr.
How long must I wait… for my cup of coffee? (2 Coffee 7:12)
I would love to see if peeps are frantically searching their Bible for the Book of Coffee, but I digress. Waiting is what captures my imagination. 340 years of not-so-good circumstances, 55 years of bad leadership, or the 400 yrs of Biblical silence between Malachi and Matthew. I want things to happen when when I say so. That would be yesterday on most items. Whether it’s the barista at Starbucks, or the car in front of me, or Amazon delivery not happening till end of day… you’re ALL screwing with my clock! Impatience seems to be the human condition, and God often uses time as His tactic to rid us of the habit. Is it only an American issue? Not sure, I can speak loosely to certain cultures, India for example, where on my visits the pace felt as frenetic as 5pm in Manhattan.
But what does it take for us to realize our limitations of time? The deeper question seems to be one of control. Because of our affluence and technological advancement, do we create a false sense of control? A few successes under our belt, no bad health scares, and shazam, I am the master of my destiny. Here’s a passage that fascinates me on multiple levels:
On a Sabbath, Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, ‘Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.’ Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.
Luke 13:10-13
The part about eighteen years caught my attention last year, and I began noticing other parts of scripture where waiting is required. You’ll find many verses pertaining to long periods of waiting, and suffering while the clock ticks. With the Luke verses, it’s not like the woman should’ve tried yoga to straighten her posture. She had what was likely perceived as a health issue. Turns out it was actually an evil spirit, which later in verse 16, Christ says came from Satan. While the miracle of her healing happened immediately, she had 18 yrs of struggle before, and God allowed it. Plenty of people don’t get the miracle healing, they can only live out a timeline not of their making. Grrr.
Or how about Job, one of the most daunting books in scripture. We don’t get as much detail on the timeline, but we definitely learn there’s much going on behind the spiritual curtain. The gist of the book is a poker game between Satan and the Lord. One of the lessons in Job is how blatantly wrong Job’s three friends are in assessing his life circumstances. In so many words, they’re saying, “Look bro, you must’ve screwed this up due to bad choices or some other thing you’re hiding. Fess up!” How many times have I done that with my friends? For clarity, I’m not referring to the obvious, “No man, knocking over a string of liquor stores will not solve your money woes.” I’m talking about how we use our wisdom to fix circumstances that might be ordained from the Lord. Discerning when God wants us to sit and stew in some struggle, is a bitch of the highest order. Our culture is not prone to sit idly for a life lesson from the Lord. We want sales to happen now to make our nut, or a relationship to be fixed within a month. We don’t have the wisdom and patience to wait on the Lord’s timing.
How much do we miss when we shoot from the hip and try to fix a thing, based on the chessboard in front of us? We didn’t maneuver the players to their positions, didn’t invent the game, and we sure as hell don’t control the clock. In other words, all the circumstances we think our Mensa prowess engineered, are actually part of God’s plan, including the bad seasons that never seem to end.
Can I learn to be patient during the struggles, while the clock ticks away? Based on how many drivers I flipped off this year, that would be a no. Grrr.
See ya next time. ML