Endurance and patience

Maybe we all have our go to texts when we are searching the scriptures for wisdom, guidance, a word from the Lord, a nudge in the right direction. I often turn to Paul’s prayers. His prayers are always for the churches as they face all the ups and downs, tensions, blessings and demands of community life.

So, I turned to Colossians 1:9-11, what some scholars call one of Paul’s wish prayers. No, not wishful thinking, but Paul’s wish list of blessings for the Christian house groups in Colossae:

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.

Paul asks for knowledge of God’s will, all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives so that…. two things —so that they might live a life worthy of the Lord AND so that they may have great endurance and patience. Now there’s a surprise. Yes, we would expect to ask God for knowledge, wisdom and understanding when we are seeking to know God’s will. But patience? A willingness to wait often requires more faith than the rush to action or the exciting risks of new ideas and rapid change.

Here’s why I think Paul’s prayer for patience helps us where we are right now. The long, slow, and stuttering emergence from Covid-19 lockdown and restrictions will require of us courage, risk-taking and a huge amount of goodwill and understanding. To think and pray, to share ideas but listen to each other’s fears, to begin to rebuild differently but also to discern what should change and what we should keep and enhance—that’s a process that works best when we have been empowered with patience.

Paul’s prayer comes from one who knows the wisdom of the gardener who waits for growth, the builder who gets the foundations right, the doctor who doesn’t rush to a diagnosis, and the shepherd who guides but does not chase the sheep. Patience and endurance are very similar words in Paul’s vocabulary. Together they describe the ability to work things out and work things through. Patience is God’s empowering presence, the resilience of the risen Christ strengthening his people.

So perhaps the prayer, “God give us patience” is the prayer for a time like this. I sense and fully understand the urgency, intensity and yes, even impatience, to get started, to get doing, to get the show back on the road. Except the church is not a show, it is a community of the Spirit, a fellowship of believers, and a local expression of the Body of Christ. Together we are the real presence of Jesus, his risen life flowing through and among us as together we seek to serve Him in the power of the Spirit, whose fruit is patience.

This emergence from pandemic coincides with our yearlong celebration of God’s (patient) work through 100 years of Pasadena Covenant Church. What a fabulous legacy we have! Our Centennial team has prepared a blog with images and stories of the foundations of PasCov, beginning this month with focus on the buildings and properties. Read more at :
https://www.pascov.org/centennial

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation