Praising God During the Wait
Praying comes last after we Seek God and Praise God. Praying comes as a result of seeking God by His Word, and Praising God for who He is and what He has done. We come to God through words after we have already heard His Word and praised Him despite our circumstances. Our seeking is often primed because of difficult waiting, our praise is often primed by encountering and remembering the character and work of God, and our prayer is primed by trusting in the promises of God. We can run to God in prayer, thank Him and ask him to help us during this time of waiting.
We have all had moments in our lives that we spent waiting. Even as a young child, I remember waiting for my birthday, waiting for a holiday, waiting to get my diving license, waiting to get married. In a home blessed with four children 12 and under we hear daily excited voices in our house giggling “Is it my birthday yet? I can’t wait!” As we grow up, those waiting times look different. They become less of an excitement about what will happen next and more of a fear. What college will accept me? Will I get this job? Will I ever fit in? Is this the person I’m supposed to marry? What if I can’t find a spouse? What if we can’t have kids? What will happen when my parents die? How will I pay the bills? Will I ever be able to own a house? Will I ever reconcile with so and so? These questions all require waiting for undetermined amounts of time. While a birthday or holiday celebration has a countdown to look forward to in the midst of the waiting, many period’s of waiting have no such definitive “end date” on the horizon.
These waiting times seem to become more frequent with age. I have recently found myself thinking about all the times I have waited in my short life. Yes, short life as I am only in my 30s, and I know I have a lot more waiting ahead of me. Waiting is an immense time of trial, whether waiting for something exciting or something that could be sad. Waiting on a diagnosis, waiting to hear if your child is healthy, waiting to find out if you need to move for a job, waiting to hear from the doctor, waiting and waiting. Waiting in itself can be a hardship, not to mention what the results of that waiting might be. Some things suggested to do while waiting are to keep busy, and not think about the topic. Some find that distraction through watching a show, talking to a friend, or reading a book can ease the suffering of the wait. None of these things are bad but as Christians, we should approach waiting differently than the world. Distraction is not our only weapon, nor is suffering in the midst of waiting for something beyond God’s use for growing or blessing us. Throughout scripture we find people waiting, and we are told to be still and wait patiently for the Lord.
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices! Psalm 37:7
How Should Christians Approach Waiting?
Psalm 37:7, tells us we are to wait patiently for the Lord. We see this theme of waiting patiently for the Lord continually repeated throughout scripture (Psalm 39:7, Psalm 40:1, Isaiah 8:17). But as we all know, or maybe just me, waiting patiently is not easy. As a mom to young kids, we have created a few different songs to help teach our children how to wait. Even with songs and dances to pass the time, waiting for something and waiting patiently for something is even harder. The songs help the kids a ton, as do other fun countdowns, but what about when we don’t know when the end is? What can we do to help us patiently for God? There are three things we can do during the waiting period, we can Seek, Praise, and Pray.
Seek
During a time of waiting, we should be seeking God. One of the best ways to seek God is to run to His Word. The Bible is God’s word that He gave to us.
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When Genuine Obedience Becomes Impossible, Hell Becomes Impossible as Well
There’s no way to understand the pastoral epistles unless you realize Paul has a category for Christians who are living a faithful, obedient life, and a category for those who are not repentant, in whom there’s no progress. They’re so marked intractably by these sins without fighting, without struggle, giving themselves over to them that the only conclusion one can reach is, I don’t think you’re really Christians. I don’t think you’re really born again. And the path that you’re on does not lead to eternal life.
Good Works vs. Obedience
There’s a really important but simple distinction we need to make in thinking about our good works or our obedience. And that is that our good works can be truly good even though they’re not perfectly good. They’re never without some imperfections. They’re always tinged with some kind of selfishness.
I remember a pastoral intern asking me years ago, “Pastor Kevin, how do you know that when you’re stepping up into the pulpit there’s not some part of you that’s doing this to be seen and to be heard or to draw attention to yourself?”
And I said, “That’s a really good question. I’ll let you know when I’m certain there’s no part of that in my heart.”
It’s not to excuse sin, but it’s to say, Yeah, there are layers to the onion of the human heart. So there’s always that presence of indwelling sin. It’s imperfect, and yet the best theologians have said that it can be truly obedient. I think that’s a new concept for some people, though it shouldn’t be, because Paul often praises the churches for their obedience. Jesus, in the Great Commission, said, “Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you.” And there’s no escape hatch that says, Oh, by the way, of course, you can’t really be obedient to anything.
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How do You Know if You Love Jesus?
Religious activity can make you feel “Christian”, at least for a little while. But if your Christianity is founded on you doing something for God, it has no root and will die in due time. A true, deeply rooted faith is founded in love for a person: Jesus. Anything less and you will either abandon the faith when trials or persecution comes or other desires will end up choking your faith. Don’t become distracted from the main thing: before you go “do something big for Jesus” or “go to Church” or “live for Jesus” start your day by simply asking “Do I love Jesus? Has my love grown cold for Jesus? Have I spent time with Jesus?”
“If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed” Paul says in 1 Corinthians 16:22. Jesus after He rose from the dead asked Peter three times in John 21 “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” These are heart-searching and serious verses. Loving Christ is not an optional part of Christianity. Therefore, there is no better question to examine the state of your heart than simply asking “do I love Jesus or not?” Yet I have often found in my own life that this question can quickly become very abstract. How do you know if you love Jesus? Are there any objective tests to help you assess the state of your soul?
As is so often the case, J.C. Ryle in his book “Holiness” gives a clear and helpful answer on how you can know if you love Jesus or not. His words are worth your time and represent an excellent set of ways to examine yourself to determine if your love for Christ has gone cold. I quote his 8 marks of love below and for the rest of this post, I want to think through how these marks can help you know if you love Jesus. In fact, what Ryle gives below summarizes the Christian life itself powerfully and concisely.
If we love a person, we like to think about him.
If we love a person, we like to hear about him.
If we love a person, we like to read about him.
If we love a person, we like to please him.
If we love a person, we like his friends.
If we love a person, we are jealous about his name and honor.
If we love a person, we like to be always with him.
From “Lovest Thou me?” in Holiness by J.C. Ryle
You know what love looks like on a human level.
Ryle’s goal in this section of “Holiness” is simple: if you know what love looks like at a human level, then you already know what it looks like to love Jesus. Each of the 8 marks Ryle gives are based on the simple fact that if you love a person, you behave a certain way towards them. Likewise, if you don’t behave a certain way towards a person, chances are you don’t truly love them. If you love a person, you think about them, talk with them, want to be with them. You are concerned to please that person, you care about that person’s reputation. In short, your love for that person is demonstrated in visible outward behaviors.
Therefore, Ryle in these 8 marks wants you to simply ask “are these things true of me with regards to Jesus?” Do you think about Jesus? Do you long to hear from Him through daily Bible reading and the preached word? Are you concerned with pleasing Him and His opinion of you? Do you love the people He loves and died to redeem? When others speak poorly of Jesus, are you bold enough in your love for Him to defend His reputation? If the answer to these questions is “no” then perhaps your love for Christ has grown cold. You might say “of course I love Jesus!” but if that love is not seen in any of the ways Ryle lists, perhaps you love Jesus in word only.
How do you know if you love Jesus? Examine your life.
Asking whether you love Jesus isn’t a trick question or an impossibly abstract inquiry. Love for a person shows itself in inward delight and external expressions.
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Jordan Peterson: The Last Professor
Jordan Peterson is a professor, a pretty decent professor. He may not be the greatest thinker currently alive in western civilization, but he doesn’t need to be. No professor does. He does what a professor should do: he interrogates assumptions, presents his ideas in a clear and cogent manner, and is a respectful and courteous listener to those with whom he disagrees. Being a good professor is more than enough.
I typically stay away from topical subjects. As a scholar of Metaphysical poetry, theology, and philosophy, the subjects that I usually write about—phenomenology, sophiology, mysticism, and poetics—are not of the kind that make it into the headlines. Nevertheless, I’ve been asked to write about what has come to be called “The Jordan Peterson Phenomenon.”
Peterson, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, first came to national attention in his native Canada in late 2016 because he balked at his country’s new legislation demanding people use “alternative pronouns” when referring to certain persons, usually transsexuals. Quite simply, Peterson refused to use these pronouns—“ze,” “zhe,” “zir,” and so forth (I’m not even sure how to pronounce them)—arguing further that terms like “gender identity” and “gender expression” are notoriously ill-defined, despite being used to bully opponents into submission. This was Peterson’s “mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore” moment.
At the time, I was glad he stood up to the government (and university) bullies. Good for him. Universities, of all places, should be places where free speech is respected and the marketplace of ideas encouraged. Agree or disagree with Peterson, it was certainly a discussion worth having. And still is. But universities in Canada it seems, much like many of their American counterparts, are far from being open spaces hospitable to the exploration of knowledge and the pursuit of truth.
In the meantime, Peterson has become a phenomenon. And bigly. He has 518k followers on Twitter, over 898k followers on Youtube, and a bestselling book, 12 Rules for Life. Not surprisingly, Peterson’s popularity has instigated much debate and critique (a good deal of it nasty) from the press as well as from his fellow academics. The academic criticism tends to be very snippy.
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