Perspective + Patience

Did you ever have a teacher who would read to your class? I always loved that. Sometimes they had a rocking chair. My teachers always knew how to hold the book just right so that everyone could see. At times they would share stories, but sometimes they would gather everyone around to tell them something very important.

There's a moment in the book of James, where James does just that. James wants us all to gather and listen to what he says in James 4:13:

“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’ - yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”

James gathers us around - all of us. All the people who love to look at tomorrow and plan out what’s going to happen. All the visionaries, the planners, and the investors. He’s saying, "Come sit over here; circle up." You might say, "I hate calendars," or "I don’t plan past next week," but we’re all guilty of this. We all look into the future and make plans as if we know what's going to happen. We construct ideal futures in our heads that we hope to accomplish. We constantly ask ourselves where we want to be in five years so we can evaluate our success as we go. James says, "Gather round, there’s something you need to know."

James simply says, “You don’t know what you think you know. You think that you can make your plans, but you don’t really know what tomorrow holds. You may have a schedule or routine, but you are not as powerful as you think you are."

James makes us feel very small. He calls us a vanishing mist. He makes planners feel like they have no control. Young people suddenly feel very vulnerable. He's reducing us. He’s helping us see our real place in history. The truth is, that out of thousands of years of human history, we are a quick mist that appears and vanishes before it is really noticed. You can almost feel the group around James looking at their feet.

After he’s made us feel tiny, he directs us towards something else. He says this in James 4:15:

“Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’”

It’s a pretty simply concept with a profound outcome. The correct perspective is that we are a quick vapor on the landscape of human history, but Jesus Christ gives us a chance to spend that tiny life for something big. We can donate our small tiny life to the One who spans that entire landscape. And that’s what James wants us to see. He brings us low so that we will look up into the eyes of God and see what really counts.

The opposite of this perspective that we are small is arrogance. Thinking can affect tomorrow for our own good is really thinking too much of ourselves. We start thinking that short lived things are going to last forever.

There is a direct correlation between perspective and patience. As we gain perspective, we gain patience. As we lose perspective, we lose patience. As we become more important, we want what we want, when we want it. As we over-inflate our position, we forget the needs of others and barrel forward on a path to get our stuff, for us, right now. But those with the right perspective see God and wait on Him.

James gives an example of this perspective-built patience in James 5:10-11:

“As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have hears of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.”

James ends his letter by talking about perspective and patience. He points us towards the prophets. Throughout Israel’s history, God spoke through the prophets to His people. In the middle of the craziest of circumstances, the prophets heard from God. When the enemy was camped outside the gates, it was Isaiah who would speak up. It was Nathan who pulled David back from the brink of his sin. When Israel forsook its relationship with God, it was Jeremiah who helped King Josiah purify the nation. In short, if a prophet of God had anything, they had the right perspective.

The characteristic that James lifts up from the lives of the prophets is their patience!

As you gain perspective, you gain patience.

He says in James 5:11 that "we consider those blessed who remained steadfast." That’s what all this patience is about. It’s not just being patient with your kids, dealing with a frustrating friendship, or waiting in the grocery store. It’s macro-patience that sees God and His purposes as more important. It’s a patience that understands that God is in control, and strives to believe Him to the very last day.

Today, pray for patience. Not to make it through, but to really trust God. He is worthy of it.