The God Who Waits--November 15, 2022

The God Who Waits--November 15, 2022

"Love is patient..." [1 Corinthians 13:4a]

Try an experiment with me, would you?

As we take Paul's description of love phrase by phrase over these coming days, see what happens when we insert the name of God where Paul has first written the word "love."  [I think that's fair game, since Paul himself has been pointing us all along to see what God shows us what genuine love looks like.  And for that matter, another New Testament voice just comes out and says plainly, "God is love."]  So, let's see what happens.  Let's see how our perspectives are changed, how our understanding is deepened about both God and about love, when we speak God's name where love was.

Are you ready to try it?  Here goes.

God... is patient.

Huh.  Right away that strikes me as an unusual thought--but one really worth exploring.  We are used to thinking of patience as "the waiting you have to do in life when you aren't in control of the situation."  We think of patience as what ornery toddlers require of their weary parents.  We speak of needing patience in the waiting room of the doctor's office when the physician is already running late.  We insist on patience when the line is too long or supplies are running short.  And while we might think it perfectly sensible to teach our children patience--or to remind ourselves to practice patience when we are the ones being delayed--we rarely think of God being patient.

Maybe that's because we often picture God as the one pulling the levers, executing the "divine plan," setting everything into motion, and in control of the universe.  Maybe it rubs us the wrong way to think of God having to be patient with anybody--after all, waiting seems to be "beneath" God, right?

But, really, the whole story of the Bible is very much a story of a God who is patient with us--despite our persistent way of messing things up.  Because of who God is--that is, because of God's character as One-Who-Loves--God chooses to be patient with us.  God takes the risk, you could say, that we will mess up again, choose rottenness again, go astray again... and when we do, God has committed to stay with us rather than to abandon us.  God stays. God waits.  Even when it hurts.  Even when it costs God.

That's a whole other dimension to this facet of love.  Our English word "patience" doesn't capture all the fullness of Paul's language.  The word Paul uses here translates more literally to "is long-suffering," or "is willing to endure great stress and hardship."  Patience isn't merely twiddling your thumbs or furrowing your brow while you scowl at the clock.   Patience isn't merely the condition of being inconvenienced.  Patience, in this biblical sense, is about the willingness to endure suffering for the sake of the beloved.

And really, if you give it much thought at all, that is exactly what the Scriptures show us about God.  To speak of the patience--or "long-suffering"--of God doesn't mean picturing God giving passive-aggressive sighs while waiting in the lobby of the auto shop for an oil change.  It's not that a very busy God is troubled by having to stand in long lines like we are when we speak of the need for patience.  It's that God, from beginning to end, is committed to enduring pain with us, as well as because of us, when we keep getting ourselves into trouble.  From Eden on, ours is the God who waits--the God who doesn't instantly "zap" the transgressing couple for eating forbidden fruit, the God who hangs up the bow and arrow after the flood promising never again to deal with human sin by wiping us all out [even when our crookedness and cruelty might really deserve it], and the God who goes on the long journey with wandering Abraham and Sarah, into slavery with the Hebrew children, on through the Sea with Moses and Miriam, and into the wilderness once again.  The whole epic story of salvation, with all its unexpected detours, twists, and turns, is the story of a God who is long-suffering while human beings go off on their own in the wrong direction.  Exile and homecoming.  Hope that waits for a Messiah.  And even when Jesus himself appears on the scene, he describes himself as one who waits with long-suffering, like the mother hen who longs to gather her brood under her wing, despite their stubborn refusal to be drawn to safety.  

The more you think about it, the clearer it becomes:  God really is patient, in the sense of a chosen waiting and enduring that doesn't give up even when we make things harder for God.  God waits.  God accompanies.  God endures.  And on top of it all, when we want things to go faster, or we want answers right away, God is willing to bear our shortsighted doubts and complaints that God is taking too long and must be making us wait.  That's not it.  It's God who is being patient with us.  It is God who is enduring suffering because we are holding up the show.   It is God who bears the pain of our mess-ups and lost-ness, not because God is stuck without a choice like feeling trapped in a waiting room, but because God continually commits to sticking it out with us, even when that is costly.  As William Willimon has put it, "God refuses to be God without us."

So for whatever else we may have to say down the road about how we practice patience, and for whatever good reasons we may have to instruct and encourage each other to endure and bear suffering for others, it really all starts with God.  God is patient with us, because that is the nature of love.  Like a parent who has already bought and wrapped the presents months ahead of Christmas and now holds in the excitement until it is time for the children to receive them, God is patient with us even in the gifts of grace God has already prepared for us.  

Before we get carried away with sentimental overkill from too many romantic comedies that love is best seen in rash, impulsive grand gestures, maybe it is worth remembering with Paul here how beautiful love is when it is experienced as patience.  When love shows up, holding our hand at the hospital bedside, or keeping vigil, or walking beside us for the long haul, we know what the apostle means by saying that love is long-suffering.  And we know, too, then, how we are beloved by the God who waits.

Lord God, thank you for your patience with us, and your endurance that bears the heartache we cause. Thank you for walking with us and telling us we are worth the wait that comes with sharing the journey with us.  Thank you, Good Lord, that your love is patient.