Patience is a virtue we admire, and even aspire to, from afar. The closer it comes to us, however — the more it invades our schedule, our plans, our comfort — the more uncomfortable it becomes.

Patience exists only in a world of disruption, delays, and disappointment. It grows only on the battlefield. We cannot practice patience unless our circumstances call for it — and the circumstances that call for it are the kinds of circumstances we wouldn’t choose for ourselves. We would choose convenience, speed, efficiency, fulfillment. God often chooses circumstances that call for patience. And he never chooses wrongly.

Impatience grows out of our unwillingness to trust and submit to God’s timing for our lives. Impatience is a war for control. Patience, on the other hand, springs from different soil — from a humble embrace of what we do not know and cannot control, from a deep and abiding trust that God will follow through on all of his promises, from a heart that is profoundly happy to have him.

“The kind of patience that honors God is so hard that we cannot practice it without help from God.”

In other words, the deepest patience comes from a humble and hopeful joy in God above all else. That means that real patience is not only inconvenient, difficult, and wearying, but, humanly speaking, impossible. The kind of patience that honors God is so hard that we cannot practice it without help from God. It grows only where the Spirit lives (Galatians 5:22–23).

Many Shades of Patience

What might we say, then, practically speaking, about real patience in real life? Where could we look in Scripture to see some of the colors and texture of patience in action? One verse, in particular, humbles me and bursts with lessons for everyday patience:

We urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. (1 Thessalonians 5:14)

The ways we approach each group — the idle, the fainthearted, the weak — are different, but we’re called to patience with them all. Which means we’re likely going to experience temptation to be impatient with them all (and many more besides them). So what might patience look like in each case?

Help the Weak

The weak test our patience because they need more from us than most. Many of us have an impulse, at least in the moment, to step in when we see a weak person in need, whether that person is young, or old, or sick, or emotionally or spiritually vulnerable. But weakness, we all know from personal experience, rarely stays contained within a moment, which means the weak need more than in-the-moment help; they need for-the-long-haul help — and for-the-long-haul help requires patience.

Paul does not charge the church to admonish the weak, but to help them, and the word for help here can also mean to hold firm or be devoted. There’s a tenaciousness in this help, a clinging to the weak, even after months or years of inconvenience and sacrifice. Where does that kind of patience come from? From knowing that “while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6) — in other words, he died for us. And that “God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27) — in other words, he chose us.

Those who know how painfully and helplessly weak they are apart from God are more ready to endure the weaknesses of others. They don’t resent helping for the hundredth time, because they gladly trust and submit to God’s plans, including the weaknesses he has placed around them.

Encourage the Fainthearted

The fainthearted test our patience because they get more easily discouraged than most. Among the Thessalonians, some were beginning to wither while they grieved the loss of loved ones (1 Thessalonians 4:13–5:11). Discouragement was drying up their spiritual strength and resolve — and so they needed more from others (who were also likely grieving).

The fainthearted lack the strength or stamina others have in relationships and ministry. They bring burdens they cannot carry by themselves. They often despair of their burdens, struggling to see how life will ever be more bearable. And we all already have our own burdens to bear, so regularly speaking grace into someone else’s emotional and spiritual needs can feel especially taxing over time. The ministry of encouragement often requires unusual endurance.

Those who keep walking with the fainthearted, even when the path is slow and winding, demonstrate the strength of a supernatural patience. They have discovered, first for themselves, and then through themselves for others, that

[God] gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:29–31)

Anyone who has experienced the gift of strength and renewal longs for other fainthearted people to experience the same. And how much sweeter when God strengthens and renews someone through us?

Every Christian experiences discouragement, which means every Christian needs a steady stream of courage to endure suffering, to reject temptation, to sacrifice in love, to embrace discipline, to persevere in ministry, to trust and obey God. And those streams run low or even dry in churches when we lack the patience needed to persevere in encouraging one another.

Rebuke the Idle

It’s not hard to see how the idle test our patience. In the case of the Thessalonians, it seems, some thought Jesus was returning imminently, and so they started shirking their work and leaving it to others (2 Thessalonians 2:1–2; 3:6).

The idle test our patience because they refuse to take responsibility and initiative. They could do more, help more, carry more, contribute in more significant ways, but they’re content to do just enough (or less), which means someone else has to do more. And when we are that someone, we understandably grow impatient.

But Paul doesn’t let the impatient off the hook, even with the idle. He does say admonish them — warn them, exhort them, wake them up — even if you have to withhold food for a time (2 Thessalonians 3:10–11) or remove them from fellowship (2 Thessalonians 3:6). Nevertheless, he says to do so with patience. Be patient with them all. What might that mean? We don’t usually associate hard words or painful consequences with patience.

Why of Patience

First, we might ask, Why are we patient, even as we admonish the idle? We’re patient with sinners, in part, because we still are one. The idleness of others — or the greed of others, or the lust of others, or the anger of others, or the vanity of others — is never so evil that we cannot see something of their sin in ourselves. It takes very little imagination for us to see that, apart from an undeserved miracle, we would be them — and perhaps far worse.

Impatience with sinners betrays a small view of God’s mercy toward us. The same apostle that says we should rebuke the idle also says,

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. (1 Timothy 1:15–16)

Even our rebukes should be seasoned with a humble awareness of our own sinfulness — of just how wicked we would be without the grace of God.

How of Patience

Knowing why we are patient, even with those we need to rebuke, how do we rebuke with patience? First, it probably needs to be said that good rebuke itself is an evidence of patience. It’s easy to give up on sinners. It’s easy to lash out and tear down someone who has sinned against us. Those who rebuke well — who aim to restore someone through honest and gentle confrontation and correction — demonstrate that they haven’t given up, and that they still have hope that God will grant conviction, forgiveness, reconciliation, and transformation.

Patience in rebuke, though, will also mean a willingness to wait for change. Sanctification can be painfully, sometimes excruciatingly, slow. We shouldn’t expect the slothful to become immediately diligent — or, for that matter, for the proud to become immediately humble, the angry to become immediately kind, the lustful to become immediately pure. We don’t overlook patterns of sin in those we love, or make excuses for their sin. We go to them, we warn them, we implore them, we even rebuke them sharply, if necessary — and we keep doing so — but we do so knowing, again firsthand, that change often comes slowly. We plant seeds knowing that they may need time to take hold, mature, and eventually blossom.

Patient God for Impatient People

We might welcome the opportunity to rebuke the lazy and negligent, but can we do so with patience? If we can’t, it’s likely because we haven’t meditated enough on the patience of God toward sinners like us — sinners like me.

“God never asks anyone to be patient who hasn’t already received the infinite riches of his patience.”

When Moses pleaded to see God’s glory, what did God reveal about himself? “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness’” (Exodus 34:6). He has every reason and right to get angry with us, and yet he’s slow to anger. He’s patient with us, 2 Peter 3:9 says, “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” God never asks anyone to be patient who hasn’t already received the infinite riches of his patience.

That doesn’t mean patience isn’t hard. It is. Whether in traffic on the way to work, or in a season of significant transition or uncertainty, or beside the hospital bed of someone we love, patience can require uncomfortable sacrifice and surrender. In the Father’s patience, after all, he did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us. As it was at the cross, so it is with us. The painfulness of our patience serves its hidden but beautiful purpose: to call attention to the beauty and power of God’s love.

For nearly four centuries, the frequency of abortion in America has depended on how citizens and residents answered five questions:

Anatomy: Is the being in the womb human?

Bible: Is Scripture’s teaching on the sacredness of human life binding on us?

Community: What kind of advice and support do vulnerable women receive from boyfriends or husbands, parents or friends, employers, or anyone to whom a woman might look for emotional and financial help?

Danger to women: What is the likelihood of an abortion ending with not just one victim but two?

Enforcement: In what informal and formal ways do those with influence and resources protect the most vulnerable?

How do we answer these questions today? One article does not provide enough space to spin out each of these threads historically (if you want to read more, Leah Savas and I have done that in our book, The Story of Abortion in America). But some changes are evident: Americans now have more awareness than ever before of what unborn children look like, and less knowledge of what the Bible teaches. The influence of community and the possibility of enforcement have fluctuated over the years. The danger to women has sharply declined. Let’s unpack these changes one by one.

‘A’ Is for Anatomy

The most popular seventeenth-century guide to pregnancy and fetal anatomy, The Midwives Book, echoed ancient and medieval contentions that unborn children have “first the life of a Plant, then of a Beast, and lastly of a Man.” But in 1839 Dr. Hugh Hodge, brother of theologian Charles Hodge, spoke of the unborn child’s continuous development from conception.

Other doctors conveyed Hodge’s teaching to their patients, who without seeing an unborn child were proceeding on faith. A breakthrough in popular understanding came at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City, where more than two million people waited in line to view twenty-four sculptures that showed human development in the womb. The next mass education came in 1965 when a Life magazine cover showed Lennart Nilsson’s photograph of an unborn child floating within an amniotic sac. This issue was Life’s all-time fastest seller at checkout counters. And now, 3D and 4D ultrasound lets a woman see not a baby but her baby.

‘B’ Is for Bible

In an era of frequent Bible reading that lasted until early in the twentieth century, it was hard to miss God’s creative involvement in human life from its beginning. Colonists read in the Psalms, Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Luke, Galatians, and other books, not only that we are made in God’s image, but that he “knitted me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13).

Bible readers and hearers also imbibed sensational detail about what evildoers do to unborn children. When an Israelite town did not surrender to an evil king, “he ripped open all the women in it who were pregnant” (2 Kings 15:16). Hosea prophesied that “Samaria shall bear her guilt . . . their pregnant women [shall be] ripped open” (Hosea 13:16). The Ammonites were guilty because “they have ripped open pregnant women in Gilead, that they might enlarge their border” (Amos 1:13).

Volumes other than the Bible, like The Midwives Book, featured the sacred and secular overlapping seamlessly. Jane Sharp quoted from or alluded to the Bible at least thirty times. She twice referred to Psalm 139’s “knitted me together,” but also noted Genesis 1, 2, 3, 4, 17, 29, and 30, as well as other passages from Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 Chronicles, Psalms 113 and 127, Matthew, John, Acts, and Hebrews. Sharp frequently referred to “the law of God,” “the laws of God,” and “the blessings of God.”

Pastors in early America cited the Bible in speaking out against abortion. In 1869 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America declared that it viewed “the destruction by parents of their own offspring before birth with abhorrence.” But in 1908 Dr. Walter Dorsett at an American Medical Association convention complained that “Few sermons are preached from the pulpit for fear of shocking the delicate feelings of a fashionably dressed congregation.”

Some pastors were bold, but avoiding any mention of abortion was common in churches during the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. WORLD surveyed pastors in the 1990s and the 2010s. While some such as John Piper spoke out, I could accurately headline the articles “Silence of the Shepherds” I and II. The A and B trends — more anatomical knowledge, less Bible knowledge — pretty much canceled each other out.

In early America, as the delightfully named book Sex in Middlesex (the Massachusetts county I grew up in) showed, community pressure on young men meant that pregnant, unmarried women could generally count on marriage before going into labor. If young men hesitated, old men intervened. They rarely needed shotguns, but every father had one.

The growth of large cities beginning in the 1830s broke down community protection and left more women and children at risk. Pastor Isaac Ferris in the Mercer St. Presbyterian Church spoke to three hundred young New Yorkers in 1852 and said an apprentice or clerk a generation earlier lived with his employer’s family, “but now it is sadly altered. The lad is left on the wide world — he is surrounded by the mercenary and the callous.” Self-indulgence with no supervision left young men in a moral maelstrom.

Ferris jump-started the YMCA movement as a way to form new communities, and YWCAs soon followed. Unmarried women surprised by pregnancy often went to homes away from home. Some had non-euphemistic names like the Erring Women’s Refuge. Starting in the 1970s crisis pregnancy centers tried to create supportive communities. Many pastors, even if they did not speak about abortion, prodded their congregations to support compassionate alternatives to abortion.

‘D’ Is for Danger

Until the 1830s abortion was often fatal for the mother as well as the child. Ingesting an abortifacient was playing Russian roulette: Place a bullet in a revolver, spin the cylinder, point the muzzle at your head, pull the trigger. Letting an abortionist invade a uterus was the equivalent of two bullets in the cylinder. Only utter desperation, or unrelenting pressure from an unloving lover, would lead a woman to accept a one-third risk of death.

At that time surgical abortion hadn’t changed much in two millennia. Around the year AD 200, the theologian Tertullian described how an abortionist inserted into the uterus “an annular blade, by means of which the limbs within the womb are dissected,” along with a blunt gripper “wherewith the entire fetus is extracted by a violent delivery.”

The surgical trauma was bad enough, but then infection arrived. Abortion became a little less dangerous for mothers when specialists with steady hands and extensive experience began doing more abortions than neighborhood hacks. In the late nineteenth century, knowledge of antisepsis spread: Cleanliness in abortion was not next to godliness, but the Maryland Court of Appeals in 1901 recognized the difference antiseptic procedure made when it declared, with some tunnel vision, that “death is not now the usual . . . consequence of an abortion.”

As use of antibiotics spread after World War II, the concerns about personal danger that had kept some women from obtaining abortions dropped steadily. New York City went from 144 abortion deaths in 1921 to 15 in 1951. The number kept declining: Although abortion propagandists in the 1960s claimed “thousands” of women were dying in abortions, Planned Parenthood medical director Mary Calderone acknowledged in 1960 that for women, “Abortion is no longer a dangerous procedure.”

‘E’ Is for Enforcement

In the late nineteenth century newspapers regularly reported that abortion was arousing “intense feeling.” The Wisconsin State Journal reported an arrest “on the charge of seduction and abortion made by the parents of a girl 14 years old. . . . The arrest causes intense feeling.” But with all the intensity, it was still hard to lock up abortionists.

In 1904, Dr. Rudolph Holmes successfully urged the Chicago Medical Society to create a Committee on Criminal Abortion. Holmes became chairman and pushed his colleagues to try “influencing the daily press to discontinue criminal advertisements.” Abortion was illegal in Illinois and every other state, but the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers still ran thinly veiled ads for it. Holmes visited editors who dropped the ads, particularly when postal authorities issued a stop order against mail delivery of publications sustaining abortion.

By 1910, though, Holmes was despairing. He noted in a medical journal that abortionists, denied newspaper advertising space, printed business cards and distributed them through brothels and rooming-house landlords. He said Chicago abortionists had their own legal department, with witnesses on tap and ready to swear that “the young woman had an operation elsewhere and the doctor was merely performing a life-saving operation.” He said the coroner’s office investigated not more than one percent of abortion deaths in Chicago: “The persons who perform the operations find it easy to cover up their tracks, and it is difficult to get witnesses to testify in cases of this kind.”

Doctors in other cities shared Holmes’s pessimism about enforcement. In 1912 Dr. M.S. Iseman offered an acidic city-by-city tour of how laws were not working at street level. During five years in Washington, D.C., thousands of abortions led to “only nine indictments for abortion and three convictions — not enough to do more than to slow down slightly the traffic to abort.” In New York City, abortion was rampant but “in some years not a single indictment follows. . . . It is difficult to say which is the stronger attraction for the lady visitors to the metropolis — the horseshow, the opera, or the gynecologist.” In Atlanta, “After years of suspended animation, the police made a solitary arrest for the crime of abortion.”

The Heart-Changer

Moving forward a century to a time when more people call themselves pro-choice than pro-life, we should be aware of the limitations of enforcement in red states, particularly in their blue cities. It’s hard for me to believe that a jury of twelve randomly chosen people in my city would ever imprison an abortionist. With danger to the mother no longer a deterrent, and wherever enforcement is unlikely, the ABCs — anatomy, Bible, community — are the bulwarks for life against death.

That realization is especially important now that American society suffers from structural abortionism. The frequent corporate response to Dobbs — paying travel costs to legal-abortion states for employees in pro-life states — shows abortion’s economic role. Many organizations structure their workforce on the assumption that young female employees will always be available to show up in the office for full-time work. Corporate and government offices, instead of pretending that differences between men and women of childbearing age don’t exist, should and could be more creative in promoting shared jobs, flextime, on-site infant care including feeding times, work from home, and other pro-life scheduling.

Beyond economics, we should also recognize that an underlying cause for many abortions, like much of homelessness, is the catastrophic loss of relationships. Churches can and should be gospel-formed communities that communicate to unhappily pregnant women: There’s room here for you.

Pro-lifers in deep blue states may despair, but in one respect they may have an advantage. To be successful, laws restricting abortion need to pedal in tandem with lives devoted to expanding compassion. In red states the temptation will be to put politics in the front seat. In states where protective laws are so dead-on-arrival that millions of babies are likely to be dead pre-arrival, changed hearts are the only hope — and the gospel is a heart-changer.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15422374/paul-used-his-life-to-lift-burdens