A credit card commercial shows a happy couple buying priceless antiques. As they embrace, the husband extends one arm toward the salesman, his hand clutching the magic slice of plastic that makes all dreams come true. A sign in the foreground asks the rest of us who don’t own any priceless antiques, “Why Wait?”
The voice of a vibrant young woman leaps into our living rooms as the television screen flashes pictures of an idyllic work scene. “I’m a certified brain surgeon (or pastry chef or astronaut), and it didn’t take four years of college!”
In our heat-and-serve generation, patience is for the less able, and microwave careers leap from the oven in minutes. Just remove the packaging and serve.
Now, I’m all for personal improvement, and patience has
never been my long suit, but I sometimes wonder what’s become of discipline.
Jacob worked seven years for Rachel, and then seven more when his father-in-law
welched. David, anointed king of
Too many Christians today want to live in the age of the SST, Super Spiritual Transport, a sort of Concorde Christianity that jets us across oceans of immaturity in a few short hours of revival meetings. All the while we forget Paul’s command to the young preacher, Timothy, “Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness” (1 Timothy 4:7) .
Solzhenitsyn tells of the patience of prisoners who will spend untold hours making a spoon or a cigarette case. Melville makes the same observation about sailors carving whalebone. The reason? Well, they have no reason to hurry. A lifer in prison or a seaman on a three-year cruise doesn’t think so much in terms of a future as of one long “now.” He has lots of time, so he takes it. We could all learn a lesson from that.
Invest some time in your Christian growth. Don’t settle for less than all God has called you to be. In a small town the other day I saw a hitching rail on a street lined with cars. Clocks and calendars in heaven will have about the same importance.