This month, our meditation has been excerpted from the book entitled Extreme Devotion, compiled by Voice Of the Martyrs. In the following passage, the account of a Christian missionary in North Korea provides us with fodder for reflection and perhaps application:
Trust in Him at all times, O people. Psalm 62:8
"This gift is for you."
"What is it?" the missionary asked his friend while preparing to go into North Korea.
"Just take it. You'll know when you open it."
Disguised as a businessman, the missionary journeyed into North Korea. He was assigned a Communist guide with a penchant for long naps.
Seeing his opportunity, the missionary quietly left the hotel while his "guide" slept. He entered a nearby village and met up with a small group of believers. As soon as they realized the young missionary was an ordained minister, they said, "You must baptize us! We have waited for someone to baptize us!"
In a land where possessing a Bible can mean a fifteen-year sentence, a formal baptism could mean certain death.
Without any lake or river nearby, the missionary simply prayed over the believers one by one as a symbol of their faith. But to his amazement they were not satisfied. "We have waited forty years for Communion."
One of the believers immediately brought out some rice cakes. The missionary thought. "They had had a baptism without water, maybe they could have Communion without drink." Then he remembered the "gift" his friend had handed him before going into North Korea. He quickly grabbed his travel bag and took out the package--a bottle of wine. Speechless, each villager wept openly, praising God for His timely gift.
FURTHER: While most people in modern culture could not imagine life without a calendar and a clock, God keeps His own time. He is not driven by the tyranny of the urgent. However, we must learn patience in order to happily live within His timing. Patience means trusting God is at work, even when we don't see the evidence. Patience is the principle of delayed gratification. When we wait for God's blessings in our lives, we appreciate them so much more. What we wait for, we value more. Whether it's a rice-cake Communion or a specific need in our lives, God's timing is certain. What concerns you regarding God's timing in your life? Is it time for you to trust Him?
A moment of consideration: "Patience, child...", a mother had said to her restless youngster--a tough lesson to learn at the toddler's age. For many of us, that is a challenge as well. Changes happen in our lives, and we are wont to exclaim, "I can hardly wait for this to be done!" A patient undergoes an MRI imaging test in a clinic and wishes it over almost as soon as it has begun. The baby has colic, and the parents rue the start of the crying and yearn for the outcry to stop, or a child wishes Christmas presents to be opened now! Impetuousness is a human trait. We find it hard to hope for something and then have to wait for its coming or its completion. Yet the Bible says "...if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." (Romans 8:25) That runs counter to us and our thinking at times.
Let's consider a couple examples of persons, then, who did wait--and did evince patience:
- Jesus went to Jerusalem one Passover holiday and met a man who had waited thirty-eight years at the Bethesda pool for a healing. Tradition had it that every so often an angel of the Lord would stir the waters and whoever stepped in first would be cured. For thirty-eight years, this man had reached out for a healing only to be muscled aside by someone bigger and faster. (John 5:2-9)
Some folks say this man didn't want to be healed, or else he would have pushed other folks aside and hustled into that pool himself. I say that true patience is so scarce, we're apt to confuse it with apathy. There’s a load of difference between the two. Apathy curls up into self-pity when times get hard. Patience quietly waits its turn, trusting that God will get around to making things right in his perfect time.
- And, in his book The Uttermost Star, F.W. Boreham told about attending a farewell service for a minister who was leaving a church he had pastored for 20 years. Several preachers attended, and each eloquently extolled the pastor's virtues. Boreham commented that he had forgotten everything said that day except for a simple statement made by a man who was not even scheduled to speak. The man had asked permission to say a word, and in a single sentence had paid his pastor this compliment, "I have seen him nearly every day of my life for 20 years, and I've never seen him in a hurry!" After the service, the minister said he considered that tribute to be the most gratifying. He took it as an indication that over the years he had truly learned to wait patiently upon the Lord.
We wait patiently for the Lord to come again, for His church; though "Maranatha, Come quickly Lord Jesus" may escape our lips, James the apostle averred, "Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful." (James 5:7-10) Isaiah, too, encouraged us is saying "...they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." (Isaiah 40:31.
We have the example of an invalid who frequented a healing pool, a retiring pastor, north Korean Christians waiting for someone to give them communion, farmers through the ages, Job in his period of physical trial, and others--heartening us to seek the Holy Spirit's fruit of patience. (Galatians 5:22) Encouragement toward waiting, towards patience, towards abiding--abound within our lives. Robert A. Schuller has written, "It may increase your patience to realize that every minute you have is another gift from God. The minute you are living through right now is a gift from God. So, when God tells you to wait for Him, He is perfectly within His rights. He is asking you to give back to Him what He has already given to you."
3. Sometimes waiting can have a benefit in the short term. I heard of a missionary who did not receive her monthly check. She was seriously ill and because of no money had to live on oatmeal and canned milk. She received her check thirty days later. After mentioning this incident while on furlough a doctor asked the nature of her illness. She described the intestinal digestive trouble she had been having and the doctor said, "If your check had arrived on time and you had been eating your current diet you would now be dead, because the best treatment for your illness was a thirty-day oatmeal diet." You know, our problem is that we do not wait upon the Lord. We forget that it's through faith and patience that we obtain God’s promises.
Waiting is best paired with trusting. It is in our trust of the Lord that we can demonstrate patience. It is natural for children to trust their parents, even though parents sometimes fail to keep their promises. Our heavenly Father, however, never makes promises He won't keep. Nevertheless, His plan may take more time than we expect. Rather than acting like impatient children as we wait for God's will to unfold, we need to have confidence in God's perfect timing and wisdom. Trust is part of faith; if we truly believe in the Lord as our Savior and King, then we have more than ample reason to trust Him and His timing and wisdom.
Patience is a good life lesson. Psalm 25:4-5 asks the Lord to teach us His ways. And we know that His ways are foreign to us--his ways are not our ways; they are higher than our ways. Isaiah 55:8-9 tells us that His "thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." So we need Him to teach us His ways, "For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night." (Psalm 90:4) He will help us develop the patience which the Scriptures urge upon us. Just as James directs us to ask God for wisdom (James 1:5), we also ought to ask Him to develop patience within us. He can and will teach us. "Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name." (Psalm 86:11) He promises that He will instruct us, in Psalm 32:8, and will counsel us as we go about learning and developing this "spiritual fruit". God is a good Teacher; Christ's disciples asked Him to teach them prayer, teach them what the signs of the end of the age would be, teach them what parables meant, and more. May we be apt students and learn ably, applying what He teaches, and growing as Christians.