Because the Lord is patient with us, we can be patient too.
Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.
Final Exhortation and Doxology
Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.
Second Week of Advent and we are looking at this text from Second Peter.
The word PATIENCE stood out to me. It reminded me that there was a poet called Patience Strong, actually that was her pen-name. Many of her poems had a devotional theme to them. I wondered if Patience had written a poem about patience. I came across the following:
https://allpoetry.com/The-Faith-That-Moves-The-Mountain
In this poem it links faith to patience. Our instinct is never to sit still and wait, or trust. Our instinct, I think, is to get busy. "Busy doing nothing" as the song says. When I read the first lines of this poem, my mind was taken back to when I was a boy, growing up in Zimbabwe, and my mother telling me that if ever I am out hiking and a mist comes down, such that I cannot see the way ahead, as does sometimes happen very suddenly on Mount Nyangani in the Eastern Highlands (Zimbabwe's highest point), that I should sit down and wait for the mist to clear and not try to press ahead, as there was a high likelihood of getting lost in those conditions. Fortunately, I have never had to rely on that advice, but it is good advice nevertheless, and can be expanded to apply to any kind of progress when visibility is poor.
Now, I know, sometimes faith means progressing despite the lack of visibility. In fact,some might say to me, but the Bible says, "Walk by faith, NOT BY SIGHT" (2 Cor. 5:7). But I think that when Patience Strong writes "With Patience watch and wait" she is talking about trusting God's timing.
I believe that one of the reasons the Apostle Peter wrote this letter was because the people he was writing to were beginning to think that Jesus would never come back, that they were growing impatient with God's seeming "slowness". He reminded them that the Hebrew Scriptures said that to God a thousand years is like a day, and a day is like a thousand years - meaning that God works on a very different concept and scale of time, and so, what seems to us like a very long time, may be to God but a moment in time. Peter was saying that God was holding back from bringing the inevitable judgement to give humans the maximum opportunity to realise that they need God and repent - turn around. Peter assures them, that Jesus definitely will come again. I wonder what was making the believers become despondent, and lose hope? Could it have been the amount of persecution that they were experiencing because they had become followers of the Way? Were they, like many of the psalmists, and prophets, wondering why they were finding things so hard going, whilst the "wicked" seemed to enjoy their lives and their ill-gotten gains. A commentary I read said that the believers were beginning to live sinful lives, and this is why Peter urges them to live lives of holiness and righteousness. While it is true that we are not perfect and we all blow it from time to time, I think that it is not too much to expect our inclination and desire should be towards holiness and righteousness. Let's not become impatient with God's "slowness" because God's "slowness" is actually His patience towards us.
If God is patient with us, we should also be patient with one another. Patience is listed as one of the fruit of the Holy Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. We are told in 1 Cor 13 that Love is among other things, patient.
I will admit, that my patience is regularly tested by people who flout the regulations to wear a mask indoors and on public transport, or when they do, they don't wear them over their nose and mouth, if not on their chins, they are wearing them with their nose and nostrils uncovered. It frustrates me, because these rules are meant to limit the spread, and it is spreading way to fast. I feel impatient with people who moan about the vaccine and question its safety or efficacy.
I want to scream at them, if I am completely honest, so maybe, reading this text is for me to remember that God is patient with me, so I need to be patient with people I find frustrating.
I am also, for different reasons, frustrated with people who use the Bible to justify homophobia. I am impatient with the long and tedious process in the Church of England of looking at the "issue of sexuality and gender expression" that has now become the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) intuitive. Many others have grown impatient with the Church of England in this regard and have decided that they are voting with their feet and leaving. I understand why they are doing that, but I have made the decision that I will try and work with LLF materials and processes, and put across the message that As LGBT people we did not choose to be LGBT, and that our faith and trust in God is just as valid as those who criticise us. And that we should be welcome in churches in just the same way as anybody else, regardless of whether or not we're in a relationship, whatever our marriage status is, or how we identify. This inclusivity - radical inclusivity - needs to exist not only in a few forward thinking parish churches, but at every level of the Church from the parishes to the archbishops to the diocesan and general synod. I am choosing to remain hopeful, and hard as it is, patient, that ultimately, that true inclusion will be standard in my denomination. I am totally aware of the many logical reasons why others are sceptical of that outcome coming about.
About 16 years ago I wrote a poem entitled Nevertheless in which I referred too many ways in which modern Christians were being persecuted but that despite the bad treatment, Jesus was calling us to Nevertheless Never-the-less, to continue to Love them. It's very easy to lose heart in tough situations, and to become resentful of the people who treat us badly or unfairly. But, hard as it is, and I am not pretending that it's easy, or that I always manage to achieve this, we are called to "patient endurance" and to love our enemy and bless those who persecute us. I know the bar is set very high, but with God's patient help, we can achieve that.
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