For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, “Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.” And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. (Hebrews 06:13-15, NKJV).
The concept of patiently endured is one word in Greek. It literally means to be of a long spirit, to not lose heart.
The Christian life requires a long spirit in a fallen and often tragically painful world, and the Bible prepares us for that likelihood by providing repeated examples of those who have gone through trials and maintained their faith in the One who, because He [can] swear by no one greater, [swears] by Himself.
He does that because He knows we will be tempted to doubt and grow weary, especially in a time of trial, and He graciously desires to reassure us that His promises are true.
Nevertheless, we often become impatient with God. We want Him to do something according to our time tables; to show Himself mighty on our behalf in a way that comforts us, and vindicates us to the world.
And sometimes, we just want Him to call us home.
Parodoxically, while less than ideal, both reactions require faith in the first place, and are far better than the doubts that sometimes can assail us when things are at their darkest. Impatience, after all, is superior to despair or hopelessness in the context of pain and suffering.
Yet, if we succumb to that very natural desire for Him to speed things up, we are in danger of missing something along the way.
He wants us to be conformed into the image of His Son. That takes some doing, even for God.
In the material world, you can apply all the extra heat you want in cooking a gourmet meal, but the outcome is not a quicker result, but a ruined supper.
Using another analogy, it takes time at a certain heat to properly harden and glaze a magnificent piece of pottery. Any other process again results in ruin or an inferior product, unable to fulfill the purpose for which it was formed.
So it is with us, I'm afraid. In this life, we are uncooked and malformed. For Him to make us His masterpiece, He needs to do whatever is necessary over however long it takes in order to reform us in His image; to fix those things that sin has marred and weakened.
He loves us too much, and has paid too dear a price to do otherwise.
And in patently enduring the trial, whatever it is, we obtain something else if we trust Him to work all things together for good. We obtain a deeper knowledge of His intimate care for us; His incredibly loving attention to every detail of our being; His faithfulness in never leaving us, nor forsaking us, or giving up. No matter how much we seem to be failing outwardly.
He is there holding us up, helping us to bear the burden of living in the fires of this life.
And He has put Himself through more than we can ever know in suffering as He did on the Cross of our salvation. He knows what pain is like. He knows what despair and being forsaken is like. He who deserved no punishment received it all so that we could have the opportunity to be molded and shaped in His righteousness.
And in being so reworked by the Master's hands, we obtain the promise of eternal life with Him.
It hurts, but in the end we will say with the Apostle Paul, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18, NKJV).
So, allow Him to perform His masterful work by patiently enduring what He has for us in this life.
And know that He loves you with an everlasting love.
