Category: grace

How Long Do I Wait? The Only Safe Rule

Posted on by abigail
How long to wait person with clock

How long do you wait? Not, how long do you wait in the drive-thru or the phone queue before you opt out?

I mean, how long until you remind or text the “❓“ or ask again? Do you anguish over that?

Sometimes I do.

How Long Do I Wait?

Lots of times I jump the gun. Ask my husband. Too many times to count I remind him of what he knows and, in a little way, betray the trust. And ask my sister-in-laws about the cherry Butter-braids I bought and the Horny Toad dress I lent—times my reminders hurt, not helped, the cause.

Because patience is a thing for me. Because the initiator, performer me likes to move. But the Jesus follower me needs to wait.

Yesterday I struggled. I drafted a friendly reminder to a friend who promised to send some key details about a project. But I deleted the text. But since Saturday was prime time to get this ball rolling, a few hours later, I drafted a text again. And deleted it again.

I have not so great a struggle with my vices, great and numerous as they are, as I have with my impatience. My efforts are not absolutely useless; yet I have never been able to conquer this ferocious wild beast.

French reformer John Calvin said that. I’m with him. My family and honest friends would agree.

How many times have I reminded my husband only to find he remembered? How many times have I sent a “❓“ when my text to a friend goes unanswered only to find she was on it?

Wait Beyond Your Waiting Point

Too many. For every one time I wait beyond my natural “waiting point,” there are two times I don’t. Times my impatience betrayed my weakness. Because strong people can wait.

But how do we grow and gain strength? Physically and spiritually, it’s the same. We must push ourselves, stretch ourselves past the pain point. To maintain we can do what we do—I can run the same 4 miles every day and do the same 150 saddle-backed pushups every other day and I’ll maintain fitness and muscle.

But I won’t grow. In order to grow stronger or faster, I’ve got to run the mile faster, or go two miles longer, or straighten my arms and my back for those push-ups.

To grow in spiritual strength, we must leave our comfort zones too. In his divine power (see 2 Peter 1), we must push my “patience-muscles” to new limits. When I wait it’s because I remember the truth that in our struggle we grow strong.

That means for me to grow more patient, I’ve got to make myself wait—to send or say—to the point where I feel like I can’t wait a second longer. And then wait.

And the times I’m able to do that, it’s because I’m playing by this rule.

The Only Safe Rule

C.S. Lewis was dealing with giving not waiting when he offered this rule. But when I anguish over how long I should wait, I find in his answer my only safe rule. [Mine.]

I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give [wait]. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give [wait] more than we can spare. […] If our giving [waiting] does not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say it is too small.

Mere Christianity, 82.

That’s the rule. Spend more time waiting than I can comfortably spare. My rule of thumb for waiting is that if I don’t feel pinched, I haven’t waited long enough.

My rule of thumb for waiting is that if I don’t feel pinched, I haven’t waited long enough.

Love Waits

Have patience. Have patience. Don’t be in such a hurry. When you get impatient, you only start to worry. Remember, remember that God is patient too and think of all the times when others have to wait for you.

I won’t lie. I sing Herbert the Snail’s song more now than I did in third grade. I’m not sure if I’m less patient or only more aware of my impatience. But when I remember how often others wait for me, it helps me wait for others.

Because my impatience is not love. It’s preferring my pace to theirs, and my time as more precious than theirs. It’s not thinking of others as better than myself. It’s not love. Because, love is patient. Love waits.

My loving friend waits for me when I’m late for our coffee date. My loving husband waits for me with the car pointed out Sunday morning. And my longsuffering Lord waits for me to wait every single day.

I’m not what I will be and I’m not what I should be. But, thank God, I am more patient than I was. I am learning— to wait longer before I hit send, to wait longer before I ask again, to wait longer before I text the “❓“.

Remember that text I drafted and deleted, then drafted and deleted again? How I waited longer than “I could spare”?

Well, round about 6 o’clock last night, this came.

“Sorry, Abigail, that I didn’t get back to you earlier.”

God smiled.

And I was so glad I waited.

May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy…

Colossians 1:11

Sufficient Grace: Fish in the Ocean or Running on Fumes?

Posted on by abigail
sufficient grace

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

-God, to Paul

Is Sufficient Enough?

Sufficient.

Do you like that word? How does it sound in your ear? Does it sound sort of meager, barely enough, and just scraping by? We prefer different words—words like abundant and lavish and great—to describe grace. Thankfully, there is biblical warrant for all three.

But sufficient is a grace word. And as such, a word we embrace. But outside of that one phrase in that one verse, who cites sufficient?

If I do, it’s only as a concession. Because I’m hungry for more. I prefer excess. If a 220 thread count percale is good, a 500 thread count sateen is better. If one scoop of ice cream is good, two scoops are better. And a three bedroom ranch is good, a split four bedroom must be better. If two kids are good, three or four are absolutely better.

Lavish, abundant, great—but most of us don’t want sufficient. We want better. We want more than enough.

But when God answered Paul’s thrice-repeated plea to remove his thorn in the flesh (see 2 Corinthians 12) the word the Word chose—of all the possible words and he knows all of the words—the word he chose was sufficient.

Sufficient for the Day?

In Greek, the word for this kind of grace is ἀρκέω. It’s used only eight times in the Bible and it’s always translated as one of three English words: sufficient, content, or enough.

These are three examples of how ἀρκέω (arkeo) is used:

  • Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.” (John 6:7)
  • But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. (1 Timothy 6:8)
  • But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9a)

Sufficient. Content. Enough.

A man can no more take in a supply of grace for the future than he can eat enough today to last him for the next 6 months, D.L. Moody said, nor can he inhale sufficient air into his lungs with one breath to sustain life for a week to come. We are permitted to draw upon God’s store of grace from day to day as we need it.

As we breathe it in, God’s grace sustains us, day by day. Grace enough like manna, like mercy to match tomorrow’s trouble.

But sometimes it feels like fumes.

Even When It Feels Like Running On Fumes

Fumes were enough to get Dad’s little yellow Chevy Luv truck through the intersection and into the gas station lot. That was a white-knuckle, “Will we make it there?” trauma, running on fumes. At least to the ten-year old daughter riding shotgun.

But fumes were enough. They were sufficient to get us to the pump and fill up the Luv tank.

And they were enough this week when our plans got highjacked by serious sickness in a son.

I really don’t feel good. My stomach hurts and I am sweating really bad. I want to go home, the first text said.

This, after a day home from school, a pick up at school after 90 minutes there and a call from the nurse, and then a third day at home.

It’s horrible. A cramp in my lower gut, I am sweating really bad. And on and on, five days like this with a sick boy weaker and weaker.

But He gives more grace. I breathed it in. God provided help and helpers. We adjusted our plans.

Isn’t that what this life is? Trusting God to power us through trials? To fill us with His strength when we are running on empty?

We’ll Never Drink Grace Dry

But I could be all wrong about sufficient grace like running on fumes. It could be that the Lord is massively understating.

British author Alan Redpath thought so, As if a little fish could swim in the ocean and fear lest it might drink it dry! The grace of our crucified, risen, exalted, triumphant Saviour, the Lord of all glory, is surely sufficient for me! Do you not think it is rather modest of the Lord to say sufficient?

The God of all grace may have been rather modest when he told Paul his grace was sufficient. I don’t know.

But I do know that until we meet Him face to face, our trials will endure and his sufficient grace will endure.

Until then, enough is as good as a feast. Whether it feels like drinking the ocean or running on fumes.

This sufficiency is declared without any limiting words, and therefore I understand the passage to mean that the grace of our Lord Jesus is sufficient to uphold thee, sufficient to strengthen thee, sufficient to comfort thee, sufficient to make thy trouble useful to thee, sufficient to enable thee to triumph over it, sufficient to bring thee out of it, sufficient to bring thee out of ten thousand like it, sufficient to bring thee home to heaven… 

-C.H. Spurgeon, on 2 Corinthians 12:9

But Hypocrites We’re Not

Posted on by abigail
Actor's Mask held in hand, hypocrite

We get stronger by lifting others up. The words on my friend’s shirt caught my eye, and I mentioned it.

Yeh, John looked at it and said, “Really?”

My friend is not a hypocrite for wearing that shirt even if her “domestic encouragement” lapses — even if she’s not constantly lifting, as on mother eagle’s wings, her entire family up. I’m not a hypocrite when I join the meeting because I gave my word, even when when something better came along. And you’re not a hypocrite when you smile at me, I tell my sons, even if you don’t feel the love.

Fake it till you make it might be more right than you think.

Hypocrites Are We. Or Not.

Don’t get me wrong—there are hypocrites inside the church and there are hypocrites outside the church and the best argument for Christianity is Christians and the best argument against Christianity is Christians—hypocritical Christians. Jesus saved his most scathing words for hypocrites. See Matthew 23. (Extra credit if you can count how many woes Jesus pronounced on hypocrites.)

Like this woe, in Matthew 23: 25, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.”

But this post isn’t to pronounce woes on hypocrites. It is to correct one misunderstanding about hypocrites. Because we might get confused and think we’re hypocrites when we’re not. And it’s hard to grow up and mature when we’re mixed up and confused.

So what exactly is this word “hypocrite”?

What is a Hypocrite?

The Greek word, hupokrites, from which comes our English word hypocrite means a play actor. In ancient Greece, hypocrites literally put on masks to play the various parts. A hupokrites is someone who pretends to be something that he is not. He plays the part.

Hypocrites profess to believe one thing but actually live a completely different way. For example, if you are a vegetarian spokesman who eats a burger every lunch, you are a hypocrite. If you are an opponent of alcohol and you drink a bottle every night or if you’re a force for family values who enjoys strip clubs on the weekend, you’re a hypocrite.

Those are blatant examples of pretenders whose aim is to look good and get applause. Hypocrites might be slaves to praise.

More Natural, More Hypocritical?

But too often Christians confuse hypocrisy. And whenever we do, it’s to our loss. We lose confidence, and we feel shame. Or, more dangerous still, we may feel emboldened to sin because it feels more natural, less hypocritical.

Here’s what I mean. In Galatians chapter 5, Paul wrote, For the flesh craves what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are opposed to each other, so that you do not do what you want.

It’s a duel till the death between the Spirit and the flesh.

Which means that when my friend wore the Lift Others Up shirt, even though as her husband teased, she didn’t always to live up at home, this was not hypocrisy. Rather, she was a fallen human living out the battle. She shrugged, I wear the shirt to remind me to live it out. When I sent birthday wishes to someone who annoyed me, this was not hypocrisy. It is the Spirit in me.

Now you try it. Fill in the blanks:

When I [pray, say kind words, or do acts of service] for [someone who hurts, annoys, disappoints me], this is not hypocrisy, it is love.

No doesn’t that feel good?

Hypocrisy Or Maturity?

Hypocrisy is not when we do one thing but feel another. That is not hypocrisy.

Hypocrites publicize one set of beliefs but live by a different set of beliefs. When you come to church but you don’t feel like it, that’s not hypocrisy. That’s faithfulness. When you do the right thing in your marriage even when you don’t feel in love, that’s fidelity. 

And I underscore this because I’ve heard this before, as a pastor, “Well, Pastor, I would be a hypocrite to stay in this marriage because I’m not in love anymore.” Or “I would be a hypocrite, Pastor, to give to the offering when I don’t feel like doing so.” God loves a cheerful giver, as you’ve heard me say before. Yes, He does, so keep on giving until you’re happy. 

Listen very carefully, doing what is right when you don’t feel like doing what is right is not hypocrisy, it’s maturity.

Kevin DeYoung, “The Lord’s Prayer: When You Pray“

God wants his kids to grow up. So send the note to the annoying friend (he may already have sent one to you). Do the deed when you don’t feel like it. Pray for your enemies. Love on.

It’s the nature of life in a tent. We must fight our sinful flesh and selfish feelings (Romans 8:13) and even still, we will fall (Proverbs 24:16). This makes us strugglers and sometimes sufferers and only proves again that we’re sinners who daily need the Gospel to free and empower and forgive.

But it does not make us hypocrites.

So while we are in this tent, we groan under our burdens, because we do not wish to be unclothed but clothed, so that our mortality may be swallowed up by life.

2 Corinthians 5:4

Stone, Bronze, Rock & Gold: Finding Strength To Hope

Posted on by abigail
Man standing in strength atop massive rock in ocean.

From the end of the earth I call to you, when my heart is overwhelmed: 

Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

Psalm 61:2

I had no strength to hope and my mind wouldn’t rest. The tension from work wouldn’t let go when I fell into bed. After 20 years on the job, this kind of conflict is new, complex, and unique.

Hopeless And Sleepless

But I rest my head on the soft pillow of providence. So I should still able to sleep, right?

Because compared to Afghanistan and New Orleans and a friend who can’t eat because of radiation rampaging her mouth, my troubles are nothing. Because I believe to my core that my times are in his hands. And because I trust that in this messiness God is working for good.

But my anxious mind wouldn’t let my tired flesh sleep. Despite casting my cares and reciting a verse, two days in a row I awoke by a mind awash, weary and weak.

Then sometime in the third watch of the third night, totally unprompted, stones and a rock entered and settled me.

Strength Of Stones

I can’t explain how they came except to say, if you put God’s Word in your heart, the Spirit pulls it out.

He brought stones to mind first: What is my strength that I should hope? Is my strength the strength of stones, or is my flesh bronze?  (Job 6:10-11)

Job was my man. He felt my pain and I felt his. He was strong. I was strong.

I’ve been strong. My sisters and cousins and I joke about our strong genes and high tolerance for pain. After all, we milked kicky goats and weeded field gardens and bailed August hay. We Considine girls are strong.

Depending Strength

My flesh is strong, but it is not the durable strength of bronze. My heart is strong, but it it is not the staunch strength of a stone. It’s true: my flesh and my heart fail me. That happens when my hope dims, like it did in the dark this week when I couldn’t solve my way out of the tension at work. The truth is, I still don’t see the way out.

But I’m not alone. Centuries ago the Puritan Matthew Henry was also taken up by Job’s words.

He noted,

What is my strength, that I should hope? You see how I am weakened and brought low, how unable I am to grapple with my [moods], and therefore what reason have I to hope that I should outlive them, and see better days?

Is my strength the strength of stones? Are my muscles brass and my sinews steel? No, they are not, and therefore I … sink under the load […]

What is our strength? It is depending strength. We have no more strength than God gives us; for in him we live and move. 

The only real strength that we stones have is a depending strength. That is not a bug. It is a design feature.

Because, as Paul Tripp says, It is not your weakness that will get in the way of God’s working through you, but your delusions of strength. His strength is made perfect in our weakness!

God created us weak and needy, not with the unyielding strength of stones.

Strong Enough To Stay Upon

The truth is, I still don’t see a way out of the conflict at work. But my perspective is changing. This depending strength is giving me hope. I know He will be with me with the tension is high. Trusting Him for that brings peace.

Which is the second truth God sent in third watch of the third night. It was Isaiah 26:3-4,

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.

Stayed upon means my mind is fixed on, focused on, stayed upon Jehovah. That is the only way to perfect peace. The Hebrew word sawmak comes from the root “to prop.” A Bible dictionary says it has the idea of “to lean upon or take hold of … lay, lean, lie hard, put, rest self, set self, stand fast, stay (self), sustain.”

No sugarcoating: staying our minds takes work. It means first we press on to know God. Because we won’t trust what we don’t know. And we certainly won’t focus and fix and lean and stay our minds on what we do not trust.

But I’m here to tell you that there is perfect peace when this dependent stone stays her mind on the everlasting Rock.

Come Forth As Gold

I actually started this post nine years ago when as I first pondered those “strength of stone” words of Job. Infertility wearied me then. It took massive depending strength that I didn’t always have to hope in God’s goodness—whether it came through a third child (it didn’t) or by knowing Him more (it did).

To tell you the truth, most of my adult life feels like a series of tests. Maybe yours does too. And maybe that’s normal for every believer. Maybe it’s God’s way of testing us lumps of gold.

I’ve got some theology for that too. It didn’t come in the third watch of the night like the Rock and stones. But I know what Job knew (23:10): that he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

No, my flesh is not bronze and my strength is not the strength of stones. But as I trust in the Everlasting Rock, I gain perfect peace and strength to hope.

And when he has tested us, we will come forth as gold.
 

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 1:6-7

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:26