PATIENCE
Nathan Attwood
Pastor, Marianna First United Methodist Church
"But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance." 2 Peter 3:8-9.
Jackson County is home to a true American treasure, a remarkable geological wonder, the Caverns State Park. Visitors come to our community from around the country to see the beauty and wonder of the caves in our state park.
When I moved to Marianna, I wasted no time visiting the park and getting a tour of the cave. I remember being so impressed with the story of the Civilian Conservation Corps, how our country responded to the crisis of the Great Depression by putting citizens back to work and improving our shared life through so many civic projects that have been a blessing to our nation ever since, including the caves dug out by hand right here in Marianna.
Of course, I remember when the guide shined a flashlight at the ceiling of the cave and showed us a shark tooth. How did the shark tooth get there? Well, scientists tell us that millions of years ago, the area in which we now live was all under water. The shells and sea life settled and compressed into the limestone under our soil. Eventually, chemicals in the groundwater gradually dissolved the limestone in certain places and opened up what eventually became our caves.
And then, over many thousands and thousands of years, the sediment laced groundwater dripped from the ceiling of the caves into the floor of the caves, forming the amazing stalactites and stalagmites and other beautiful formations in the caves. I remember looking at the massive formations while the guide explained that one centimeter of formation takes a hundred years to form.
As I pondered the millennia of development it took to form our amazing caves, the process it took to go from the seas to the limestone to the caves to the formations, I said to myself, "God is more patient than I am."
The Book of Second Peter seems to have been written, partly, to address a common concern among Christians--"Why has Jesus not come back yet?" Jesus himself says he is coming back SOON. In several places in the New Testament, the writers clearly and wrongly believe Jesus will return in their own lifetime. In every generation of Christians since, people have assumed Jesus would come back in their lifetime, and have been disappointed by his delay.
Peter addresses this perpetual Christian concern by teaching us that God's timing is not our timing. He says that God is patient--patient with us, patient with his work of redemption, patient with his agenda of remaking the world into his original intention. God is faithful. God fulfills his promises, in his way, in his time.
God is always at work. Like the drip, drip, drip that makes the stalactites, his grace, goodness, mercy, justice, and renewal never take a break. And yet, God is never in a hurry. God has a long-term plan bigger than what we can see. Sometimes, things seem to move fast, and sometimes, things seem to move slow. To God, a day is a thousand years and a thousand years is a day. Time means nothing to God. God is faithful. God works. Eventually, God always wins.
We are not patient. I am not patient. My daughter moved from the Middle School to the High School this year, so I now have a significantly reduced wait time to drop her off and pick her up. To me, saving those few minutes each day is an incredible relief. When I was young, I wanted to see results from my work immediately. I thought one great sermon would transform all the people into on-fire Christians, that the congregation should grow each and every week. Sometimes it's like that. But usually it isn't. Once, I thought a year was a long time. Now, I've served my current church for nine years and have only begun to do the things God has put in my heart to accomplish. I've become more patient and perhaps more persistent, not because of my own nature, but because I have been a partner in all my life's work with a God who builds to last.
Also, along the way, I've encountered wise mentors who have taught me to be more patient and persistent. I once had a seminary professor who was discussing a change he hoped to see in his church. He said, "We will lose this one in our lifetime." I will never forget it. At the time, I was way too impatient to consider giving significant time and effort to fighting for a cause I would be sure to lose in my lifetime. But he saw that the only way to win would be to be willing to give a lifetime to progress, trusting God and those who would come later to finish the job. Every truly great cause in God's kingdom has been accomplished through people who saw the work that way, whether it be bringing the Gospel behind the Iron Curtain, ending slavery, fighting deadly disease, expanding democracy, reducing poverty, or any host of challenges.
Anything in life truly worth doing is worth investing time to do well. It takes a lifetime to build a family, decades to build a career or a stable, healthy business. Revitalizing Marianna's downtown and doing it well with take time and persistence. Building strong schools, non-profits, churches, community services for all our Jackson County citizens takes time and persistence. Buillding partnerships and collecting resources, getting people on the same page, enlisting widespread support takes time. Anything of value we enjoy today is the result of someone who came before us who built for our sake long before us.
I once knew a man who had a Ph.D. from MIT. The man told me he had successfully led an effort to advocate for children with disabilities with the Arizona legislature. Both the Ph.D. and the advocacy work took seven years to complete. He said, "Anything worth doing is worth giving seven years to get done."
The truly worthwhile projects take much longer. During the Middle Ages, architects designed cathedrals that they knew would never be completed during their lifetimes. The workman carved stones and dug foundations, sculpted saints and chiseled gargoyles for a worship space in which they would never pray. I've been in many of those great cathedrals and seen people praying and worshiping in those churches. This is what the medieval church builders understood that we have forgotten--that building a church in which they would never worship was worth it so that the church would be full of people who would worship in it for centuries.
Who has time for that now? We get impatient when a renovation project runs over by a few months. We give up when a project languishes for a few years. We get impatient when our cell phone doesn't update quickly enough. We fail to take up a project if we think it will take too long to see it through. And so, when we quit, when we fail to persist, we lose.
What are you doing with your life that is precious enough, important enough, lasting enough to be worth giving more than a lifetime? If your life project is close to the Gospel, close to what will matter for eternity, close to God's long-term project of renewal of all things, don't give up, don't get impatient, don't settle. See your life purpose from God's point of view, join with his long-term plan of redemption, and invest your life in eternity. The Bible says God is patient but he is not slow. His timing is his own but he always fulfills his promises. As we learn to trust him, we can gain eyes to see his persistent, patient, faithful working. If we learn his ways, we can learn to work the way he works, with patience and persistence that yields a new world.