Maybe we all have our go to texts when we are searching the scriptures for wisdom, guidance, a word from the Lord, a nudge in the right direction. I often turn to Paul’s prayers. The reason is simple, I think! Paul’s prayers are always for the churches as they face all the ups and downs, tensions and ructions, blessings and demands, of small community life.
Many of us have begun to think about how we now move forward as a church, as a small community of Jesus’ disciples in a world very different from the one we had gotten used to. I too, have been thinking, and praying, and listening for that word, trying to be alert to that nudge, waiting for that guidance that helps make sense of where we are and where God might be calling us into the future.
So I turned to Colossians 1.9-11, what some scholars call one of Paul’s wish prayers. No, not wishful thinking, but Paul’s wish list of blessings for the Christian house groups in Colossae. It’s worth taking time to read the gist of it:
For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.
Follow Paul’s line of thought. Paul asks for knowledge of God’s will, all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives so that…. two things – so that they might live a life worthy of the Lord AND so that they may have great endurance and patience. Now there’s a surprise. Yes we would expect to ask God for knowledge, wisdom and understanding when we are seeking to know God’s will. But patience? A willingness to wait often requires more faith than the rush to action or the exciting risks of new ideas and rapid change.
Paul prays that these small communities under pressure will receive from God wisdom, understanding, and patience. Imagine praying for the power of God to be patient! But there is a lot of wisdom, and a lot of faith in Paul’s praying for the communities of Christ to have patience. Read his words again: “being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience.”
Here’s why I think Paul’s prayer for patience helps us where we are right now. The long, slow, and stuttering emergence from Covid-19 lockdown and restrictions will require of us courage, risk-taking, and a huge amount of goodwill and understanding. To think and pray, to share ideas but listen to each other’s fears, to begin to rebuild differently but also to discern what should change and what we should keep and enhance, - that’s a process that works best when we have been empowered with patience.
So perhaps the prayer, “God give us patience” is the prayer for a time like this. I sense and fully understand the urgency, intensity and yes, even impatience, to get started, to get doing, to get the show back on the road. Except the church is not a show, it is a community of the Spirit, a fellowship of believers, and a local expression of the Body of Christ. Together we are the real presence of Jesus, his risen life flowing through and amongst us as together we seek to serve Him in the power of the Spirit, whose fruit is patience.
Paul’s prayer comes from one who knows the wisdom of the gardener who waits for growth, the builder who gets the foundations right, the doctor who doesn’t rush to a diagnosis, and the shepherd who guides but does not chase the sheep. Patience and endurance are very similar words in Paul’s vocabulary. Together they describe the ability to work things out and work things through.
And note this, it’s important. Patience isn’t the product of our own strength, holding ourselves in check with gritted teeth. Patience is God’s empowering presence, the resilience of the risen Christ strengthening his people. So as we begin to think and plan, pray and seek God’s will together, it will put all our decisions and plans on a much surer footing if first we ask for patience.
A closing thought from Isaiah, another of God’s prophets:
But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. (Isaiah 40.31)
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