Chapter 13
Paul asks us to adopt a,” a lowly opinion of ourselves.” The person who seeks to be kind and have kindly feelings about other people is often struggling with self and the desire to have their own way. It is inherent in fallen human nature, even when it is touched by the power of God, not to always want to do what is right, have tender-hearted pity and mercy for other people or be kind. Very often we don’t want to harm other people, but simply do our own thing and not be bothered with other people and their needs. To have a life centred around self is to have a high opinion of ourselves in that we feel we have the right to get our own way and not be too bothered about other parts of the Body of Christ. It is like an eye in the body deciding to have a day off and not bother focussing as it should. Its potential benefit to the body is lost and it also has the potential to bring harm to the body by being selfish. The same is true of the Body of Christ. Each part of the body has to act unselfishly in order to benefit the whole body. To have a lowly opinion of ourselves means two things:
- In respect to God it calls for us to realise that we are under his care and protection but we are also responsible to him because we are under orders to obey him and do what is right.
- In respect to other people we are not to have a high opinion of ourselves nor are we to have a worthless opinion of who we are. We are to have an honest understanding of our gifts and abilities but see them within the overall context of the function of the Body of Christ – we are not worth more than anyone else or worth less. We are to have an honest understanding of who we are and are to be loyal to the whole Body.
Are there lessons for me here? Very definitely! Too often for my own good I have swung between the two extremes of emotion. At times I despised myself and felt myself to be worthless. When were those times? When I was conscious of sin and felt there could be no example of sinfulness worse than my own. I felt so worthless that I felt I would be rejected by my peers if they saw how bad I was and could feel no sense of God’s love and acceptance. I also felt this sense of worthlessness when I saw the greater worth of others in comparison to me. Yes, there was sometimes a sense of envy and jealousy, but also a sense of lack of accomplishment for the Kingdom of God, in comparison to the achievements or godliness of these believers I was comparing myself with.
However, there were other times when I felt very accomplished and compared myself to the lack of accomplishment in other people. I felt I was making a difference for the Kingdom, but what were so many other people doing by comparison. I wanted to urge them to greater achievement because I wanted them to be where I was. It wasn’t too long before I was brought down to earth!!!
As in all things the right balance is clearly there in the Bible for us. God simply wants us to be realistic – neither high nor low. He wants us rejoice in what we are in Christ and the gifts he has given us. He also wants us to rejoice in other brothers and sisters and value who they are, all in a spirit of humility, worship and service.
Paul tells us that we are to have “gentle ways” in verse 12. William Barclay sums up what he thinks Paul means here in his commentary on Colossians,
“Long ago Aristotle had defined praotes as the happy mean between too much and too little anger. The man who has praotes is self- controlled because he is God- controlled, that is he is always angry at the right time and never angry at the wrong time.”
Whilst Barclay’s definition is good, it is incomplete to that of Wuest, quoting Trench:
“ Meekness is praotes, “an inwrought grace of the soul, that temper of spirit in which we accept God’s dealings with us as good and therefore without disputing or resisting. It is the humble heart which is also meek; and which as such, does not fight against God, and more or less struggle and contend with him. This meekness being first of all a meekness before God, is also such in the face of men, even of evil men, out of a sense that these, with the insults and injuries which they may inflict, are permitted and employed by God for the chastening and purifying of his people.”
That last quote seems to me to be more complete. What is Trench saying that there needs to be in place before we can be gentle in our ways?
First of all there has to be a humility and a heart that is willing and able to be taught. The essence of being a disciple is being a learner. Peter got it right all the time when he was a humble learner and listened carefully and humbly to what Jesus said. His mistakes came when he thought he knew best – indeed better than Jesus – when he stopped listening and went off under his own steam. The same is true of all of us. Essentially, to be humble is to constantly acknowledge that Jesus knows best and live by His wisdom and teaching in His strength.
This will create in us a gentleness of spirit – meekness. That will be evident in our dealings with God. We will not be constantly coming to the Lord telling him what we want him to do for us, but in a humble, gentle spirit, coming and seeking his wisdom and direction. The same will essentially and eventually [eventually because this is a learned process] lead us to be humbly content in our dealings with other people even though at times this might be costly – especially to our ego.
What lessons do I have to learn in order to be gentle in my ways? I think it means that I need to be humble in my attitude to God. I have to accept my past – the good, the bad and the in-between - as being the progress of a wise God in the growth and development of one of his children. I have to leave the past behind and be occupied with the present, and have an attitude of being a humble servant whatever he asks me to do and wherever he asks me to go. I must at all costs stop trying to control my life and allow the Holy Spirit to unlock the gates of my mind, my body, my emotions and my will every day.
- I need to pursue and exercise gentleness in my relationship with my wife – she deserves that! I need to stop being critical and impatient with Linda and learn the grace of seeing my own faults before I see her faults. I need to be forgiving, considerate and indeed daily be thankful for the good wife God has privileged me to have.
- I need to pursue gentleness with my children. In Eilidh, our youngest child, I see great gentleness and I need to learn, as Jesus rightly said, to become like a little child. I have to learn to temper my expectations with realism, grace, love and forgiveness. I need to see each one of my children in their own uniqueness, be thankful to God for that and realise that few people ever change with a lecture and always change with encouragement. I need to look back at my own life and see that it is taking God a life-time to knock off the hard edges in my life and it will take that with each one of my children. I need to stop wishing that they were more mature and further along the road of completeness than they are, and simply be thankful for each one of them and treat them with respect and a gentle spirit.
- I need to be gentle in the church. One of the great lessons I learned in Skye is what a turn off harshness is in Christians. I came into contact with so many fine Christians while I was in Skye but also a disproportionate number of judgmental, hard-hearted and harsh Christians who nearly broke me. That alone, eventually challenged me about my own hard-heartedness and changed me profoundly. I find myself in this new church I am in far more gentle and understanding than I have ever been in my life as a pastor. People will never change by being told what to do. What will change people is if they feel loved, respected, valued and cared for – they are much more likely to open to suggestions for growth and positive change if they feel that they matter as people to their pastor.
- I need to be much more gentle with my enemies. With those people with whom I disagree and who disagree profoundly with me, I need to show gentleness. What is the point of winning an argument and losing a person – or indeed creating an enemy for life? Of course there are times to be firm and uncompromising, but that has got to be done, in the main, in a right spirit.
In the whole spectrum of my relationships, I feel challenged by what Paul says here and I can think of many cases where gentleness would have made a difference if that had been the road I had chosen to travel instead of confrontation. However, I do not see this as a failure. I am pleased that I am still open to the Holy Spirit leading me into positive growth and I pray that it will always be so.
The Amplified Bible expresses patience as being tireless and long-suffering, and has the power to endure whatever comes, with good temper. Wow! How do I try to apply this to myself and understand it in my experience? The best way to try and dissect this is to look at the word from different angles.
As a noun the dictionary defines patience as the “capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.” As an adjective the dictionary defines patient as “being able to wait without becoming annoyed or anxious – slow to lose one’s temper when people are irritating.”
Barclay defines “makrothumia” as
“…the spirit in us which never loses its patience with its fellow men. Their foolishness and their un-teachability never drive one to cynicism or despair; their insults and their ill-treatment never drive one to bitterness or wrath. Human patience is to be a reflection of divine patience which bears with all or sinning and never casts us off.”
As I try and bring all of these different and complimentary definitions together, I feel a profound sense of how far away I am from being near to the image of Christ. However, as in all things there is much to learn if we are to successfully follow Jesus Christ and though we may have come some distance in our discipleship, there is always more of a road to follow.
Patience is tireless. Many of us get tired trying our best to do the right thing. We get weary with forgiveness and the effort it takes to be positive and to show constant love, when often it is not appreciated or valued. Isaiah tells us that “those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength.” This is surely the key. Patience, though it is more natural to some than to others, is difficult to sustain under pressure. I am thinking of my own current situation where three of my children are teenagers. They are very naturally trying to find out who they are and can be utterly self-centred and ruthlessly opinionated – not all the time, because there are rays of sunshine. It is very difficult to sustain patience and understanding over a period of 6 or 7 years as they all pass through this. We need resources greater than our own and wisdom superior to what we possess to be able to effectively and rightly steer our children and ourselves through this difficult time. Conclusion? There is a definite need for us, and indeed all of us, to spend more of our time and energy waiting upon God, seeking his help, strength and wisdom. If this is not done then there is a real danger of “wearying in well doing” and thus failing to achieve all that is possible. We need more and more of the Spirit’s help and resources to be patient.
If patience is tireless, it also has to be realistic. The Bible refers in part to patience as “longsuffering”. The meanings of that word are self- evident, but perhaps our various definitions help us tease out just what is involved. The first thing that we clearly deduce from the word is that while we are on this earth, the Christian life will be a struggle. This does not paint a dour picture of the Christian with a long face having to constantly face adversity. However it does mean that there are certain areas of our lives that will be constantly be calling for effort and vigilance:
- We will constantly be in a struggle against sin – in particular that sin that dazzles us and so easily captivates us. The struggle against sin is based on our knowledge of what is right and the inclination of our nature to do what is wrong. We “suffer-long” in this respect.
- We long for a better world and live under the promise of eternal life. This causes a sense of frustration because we live in a world that has little respect or regard for God [it will pay lip service to the idea of God, but not pay homage to the person of our Lord]. There is a longing for release from living in a world that has the potential for so much good, but in the end fails on all fronts – this is perhaps part of the feeling that Paul speaks of in Romans 8, when he refers to the whole creation groaning as it waits for the great release that will take place when Christ returns.
- We need to be willing to suffer for Christ and not just for a short period of time. I was watching Billy Connelly last night. He can be a very funny man and I love his Glasgow wit. He was telling his New Zealand audience about how much he despised Christians who tried to share their faith and making a mockery of what they believed – the audience cheered and was ecstatic. Now, as Christians we should be able to laugh at ourselves – I love Adrian Plass and the way that he helps us to do just that. However, Connolly was touching on something that is inherent in much of society – they don’t mind the idea of Christianity so long as it does not try to make an impact on society – they want to remain comfortable in their relative agnosticism and will become antagonistic when that is challenged. We will suffer in our neighbourhood, among our friends, in our families because of Christ. We need to do this with patience. There is always the temptation to hit out or to seek to justify ourselves, but God calls us to imitate Jesus and to follow the path of patient love and grace in the face of hostility.
Do you remember how Jesus told his disciples to fast? He told them not to do it with a long face, trying to impress other people – what he was saying was that the disciples were not to say, “Hey, look at me, I’m fasting. I am making a personal sacrifice and I want everyone to know how virtuous I am!” He told his disciples to exercise the discipline but for it not to be apparent to other people. In a similar way Paul tells us to be long suffering and “endure whatever comes, with good temper.” In other words we take the blows but it should never be evident. We should never be creating a fuss about how much we are suffering for Christ but to have a positive response to all circumstances that gives glory to God.
Longsuffering means acceptance. We have to learn to accept that where we are and what we have been allotted is the Lord’s will for our lives. By acceptance, I do not mean some kind of fatalistic resignation. What I do intend is the joyful embracing of our current circumstances, seen from the privileged position of being in the will of God – even if these circumstances are sometimes difficult. I was just sharing with a young friend last night what had happened to me in nearly five and half years of ministry in church in Skye. It really was a case of suffering long there!!! But I did not respond to that situation as I should – it was perhaps only in the last year that everything fell into place. What happened? I realised that instead or continuing to resist what was happening and question the will God I should have been accepting my situation and listening to the Spirit of God. What difference did this make?
Two things. First of all I realised that I was in a situation where this church had been behaving badly in at least the previous three ministries and that there was a resistance to God on the one hand, and a spirit of control on the other hand. The Lord spoke to me very clearly about a hardness of heart at the root of the congregation. He then spoke to me through another person who had known the workings of this congregation for over thirty years. He said, “You will never change this situation, only a powerful work of the Holy Spirit will do that.” I realised that I had been striving in my own strength to overcome something that only the Spirit was capable of addressing. I realised that I was so caught up in my own agendas and need to succeed that I was not listening to God. The Lord told me very clearly in that last year, “This is a prodigal congregation – it is lost and has been for many years.”
Second, the Lord was telling me to accept that I was not there to change the situation. What he was calling me to do, was what the Father did in the story of the Prodigal Son – to continue to love what was lost. I immediately understood that in my heart was anger, bitterness, frustration and a very definite lack of love – especially to some of the members in the Church. That was my moment of acceptance. I accepted God’s verdict on the congregation and that the vision I had originally had was one of my own making and not from God. Success for me was to change my whole heart and put aside the anger and resentment I felt and replace it with love and forgiveness. The Lord called me to continue to exercise this for the next year until I left the church – this was not always easy because there were many people from inside the church, from other churches and from the community who encouraged me to feel bitter. Hand on heart with a clear conscience I can testify that I left that church with a profound sense of regret and wishing the church well for the future. Despite the scars, that is how I still feel. The Lord had taken me through a longsuffering journey to a place of acceptance in love.
The above is a very personal incident of a relationship to a church that was very painful for our whole family. The place of acceptance was not an admission of failure or fatalism – it was coming to a place within longsuffering that brought peace and a knowledge of God’s will. Not everything in life works according to our wishes and agendas. This is something that the prophets of the Old Testament had to contend with from time to time. They wanted to see their nation blest, but had to walk a path of suffering and acceptance that God had chosen to act differently from their desires. Jonah is perhaps one of the best examples.
Longsuffering can mean toleration of our present circumstances. We would always want to be walking in great blessing. Some Christians feel that this is their right and that there is something wrong if we are not being blessed all of the time. Yet if we follow the path of Jesus we see that we are called as part of our discipleship to take up our cross. This means different things to different people. But surely what it does mean is that we are all going to have to face character-building, challenging and difficult times. Jesus never welcomed and embraced the Cross – we are told in Hebrews that he “endured” it. There are moments in life when we have simply got to endure them in faith, recognising that God is at work in both us and the situation we are having to face. However we have always got to realise that life is not all about suffering and at the same time, there is no automatic entitlement to blessing. There are times when the Lord in his good and perfect wisdom has to humble us before he uses us to bless others.
A great deal of time has been spent looking at patience and longsuffering. In summary, the good Lord is teaching us what it like to be God. He shows an infinite capacity for patience with what are essentially shallow and sinful people [sorry if that sounds insulting, but you know in your heart of hearts that before God that shallow and sinful is an adequate description of who we are]. He resists exercising judgment and instead pours out his grace and love into our lives. And he has suffered – he suffered on the Cross an awful judgment in order to save us. The more we walk this path of living with patient love in the face, sometimes, of real opposition, we are entering more fully into the heart of God.