Sticking Points

Spiritual Training Cycle: Submission (wk. 11/13)

Reading: Romans 5:1-5

Sticking to a fitness regime is hard. Any of us who have stuck to a fitness regime know that real change doesn’t happen fast. While it’s motivating to see some initial success, we’ve learned that it takes patience and time – in many instances a long time – to get the lasting results we aim for. To get anywhere significant in our fitness journey, we need the patience to stick with it for a lengthy period. To push through our sticking points.

Suffering over time “She suffers well.” – that’s the lofty compliment Coach Sean (who is rarely complimentary!) shared recently about one of our members.

“She suffers well.” Not “she’s gifted” or “she’s strong,” or “she’s coordinated” or even “she’s a natural athlete.”

Coach Sean’s highest compliment for her was, “she suffers well.” Why was that so impressive to our normally unforthcoming coach? A coach, by the way, who has years of experience working with hundreds of athletes – why does he see this as a key to her success?

While she’s done athletic things all her life, this member would say she is not naturally gifted. Like most of us, she didn’t go to college on an athletic scholarship. When her school-aged friends were excelling on sports teams, she was a “b” player - never an all-star. But now, in her early thirties, her years of disciplined, patient endurance - “suffering well” according to Coach Sean - is paying off as she sets new PRs and slowly moves up the local scene in CrossFit competitions.

Sticking to a fitness regime is hard. So is life. This principle of sticking with it – having patience through suffering – is not just a fitness reality. It is a life reality. Things are hard. Relationships are hard. Work is hard. Home is hard. People are hard. Some days, simply putting one foot in front of another is hard. The question is not, “How do you avoid the hard things?” The question is, “How do you learn to be more patient, enduring the hard things as you mature?”

In his letter to Christ-followers in Rome two thousand years ago, the apostle Paul acknowledged that these new Roman Christians were experiencing suffering. Ostracized, hated, shunned and at times even persecuted by the people and culture around them, these followers of Jesus were suffering because of their faith.

He also reminded his readers that suffering is never for nothing. In Romans 5, verses 3-5, he writes:

We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

The goal of patience There’s a “maturity sequence” in these verses: suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character and character produces hope. I can’t think of anyone who takes life seriously that wouldn’t say they’d like to have more endurance, be more mature in their character and stronger in their hope for the future.

Paul indicates this sequence of maturity starts with patiently enduring suffering. It’s as if he is saying, “you want to be a more mature person? Lean into the hard things with patience – these hard things will produce the fruit you are looking for.”

But Wait, There’s More! And the good news for those of us who are follows of Christ? – Here’s the 10,000-extra-credit-point/lottery ticket-winning/get-out-of-jail-free/million dollar/unlimited redemption pay-off: Paul makes it very clear at the end of this “suffering-endurance-character-hope” sequence that our ultimate hope won’t disappoint us because of this profound truth: God is for us through the hard things that life throws at us. No matter the suffering we must endure, under God’s love, the outcome is already decided in our favor. Patience has the potential to transform our lives. All we need to do is hold on and keep moving through the sticking points.

Questions for Reflection:

What hard things do you need to lean into right now to grow in patience?

What would it take for you and God to grow your endurance, character, and hope?

Not Yet

Spiritual Training Cycle: Submission (wk. 10/13)

Reading: James 5:7-11

The double under. For the uninitiated, it’s a simple physical task – jump the body off the ground and pass a rope underneath your body twice while suspended in air. For me, it’s perhaps the most complex physical task I’ve pursued. And pursuit is the right word. Because double unders are elusive. I can’t tell you how many times I tried and failed. How many YouTube videos I watched. How many different jump ropes I tried (surely it must be the rope and not me). A few years into my adventure for double under conquest, I remember attempting a few after class – with no success. My coach walked by, put his hand on my shoulder, and said, "not yet.”

Not yet. Disappointing and comforting all wrapped into one. And that’s the tension athletes feel when they embark on the development of a new skill. Skills rarely appear overnight. Instead, they take time. With good coaching and consistent practice, “not yet” becomes another way of saying, “trust the process.”

We must also learn to trust the process in developing the spiritual skill of patience. Patience is the space where faith becomes foundational. It’s the space where God’s rhythm becomes our rhythm. It’s where God prepares us. But patience is hard. When you’re waiting on the test results, or the annual performance review, or for your friend to apologize, “not yet” is not comforting at all. Until you realize that patience is also a process.

Like the double under, you don’t just instantly have patience. It must be developed. And to become a virtuoso in patience, such that others marvel at how easy you make it look, you must be exposed to situations that test your patience. And you must keep the proper perspective about them.

The book of James is a letter to people who are suffering. They are being persecuted for their faith, they are questioning why God would allow them to suffer, and some are considering abandoning their faith in Jesus altogether. James tells his readers to be patient – easier said than done. Then he gives examples of patient people. Farmers are patient. They must wait for the rains and for the land to produce a harvest. The prophets were patient. A man named Job was patient. Job persevered through some really difficult things, and when we read his story, we realize patience is the process where we develop the character of God.

You want to know how much you love someone? Wait on them. I don’t mean take care of them. I mean wait in your car for what seems like an eternity for your teenage children who were told to get ready an hour ago but somehow can’t get it together. What you say when they open the door will reveal a lot about you. Will you greet them with compassion and mercy or anger and frustration? That’s patience revealing your character.

Mercy. Compassion. Empathy. Love. This is what patience has the potential to produce in our lives. The question is will we trust the process? So, whatever you’re praying for; Whatever you’re asking God to do right now; Whatever you’ve asked Him to do already like a million times; Be patient. God’s greatest answer for you may simply be, “not yet.”

Questions for Reflection:

What kind of waiting frustrates you the most? (i.e., waiting in line, waiting for others, waiting for your food, etc.)

What part of God’s character is patience developing in you?

More With Less

Spiritual Training Cycle: Submission (wk. 9/13)

Reading: Deuteronomy 8:1-9

Are you familiar with the sport of handball? It’s played by teams of seven passing a ball using their hands across a field with the aim of throwing the ball into the goal of the opposing team (like most normal sports). I learned a valuable lesson from one of the best in the sport, George Quam.

He was inducted into the Minnesota State Handball Association Hall of Fame in 1993. What set him apart from everyone else was that he was born with only one arm. That’s quite a disadvantage if you ask me in a sport called handball. However, in an interview that he did, a reporter asked him what made him such a great player. Quam’s response was, “I have less options.”

The more I thought about his response the more it started to make sense to me. It’s freeing at times to have less options. Personally, I enjoy true or false tests more than the multiple-choice ones because I had a 50% chance of getting the answer right even if I just guessed. For Quam, having his options narrowed down to one, I can imagine that his senses were heightened on the field when he played. Instead of having to think about what hand to use when the ball was served his direction, he could use more of his thought process calculating his next move.

Taking it figuratively, I believe some of our experiences look like we are playing handball with more than just two hands. It seems we increase our anxiety when we add more options to our list of options. For example, you can go online now and search “How to get in shape,” and you can find thousands of videos telling you different ways. With all of the resource material you can find, how do we make our lives any easier? The answer is less options, but the right ones.

As I read the Scriptures, it looks a lot like the life God was offering to the Israelites when he rescued them out of slavery. After their escape from captivity, they spent forty years trying to find their way through the wilderness. Their only option if they wanted to live was to rely on God, and God provided for them. He led them through the wilderness to test and humble them. If they were to be His people, they were to stand out among the rest of the nations who served other gods by centering their worship on the One true God.

As a departing speech, Moses reminds the Israelites of this, “man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” I interpret this to mean that an easy option can be the wrong option if it’s not what the Lord intends. Jesus lived by this principle as well when he fasted in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights (Matthew 4:1-11). Under the extreme conditions he faced without food in the desert, the devil sought an opportunity to tempt Jesus to break his obedience to God. Instead of choosing the easy wrong option, He chose the difficult but right option of depending on God for His needs.

Jesus trusted in the Father with His very life to take on the sins of the world even when we didn’t choose Him first. If Jesus did not raise from the dead but instead died with all our sin nailed to the cross, then we would need another option. But in fact, Jesus did raise from the dead making Him the only option for us to know God.

The simplicity of the Gospel helps us to enjoy our lives more because it’s not about having more options but less. So, what fewer options do you need in your life? The spiritual exercise of simplicity can help you find the answer. Because the bottom line is that we can search for joy and peace and fulfillment in plenty of places – careers, accomplishments, investments, or even athletic achievements. But we’ll never find what we want by adding more. We’re not fulfilled by the more we do but made whole through the One we know and love.

Questions for Reflection:

How can you apply the concept of “more with less” to your life?

What options compete for your relationship with God?