6/4/11
Greetings, Growing up with siblings is both fun and challenging. For some, it’s more challenging than others. The topic of discussion this week is patience. Unity will require patience. As I was meditating on this, I had a revelation that siblings provide a great illustration of patience!
I have two siblings. My brother was born when I was two, and my sister didn’t come around until I was fourteen. As you can imagine, one helped me to learn more patience than the other. My brother greatly assisted me with this fruit of the Holy Spirit. How? He repeatedly tested me.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering [patience], kindness, goodness, faithfulness…” (Galatians 5:22)
Before I begin with the illustrations, I want to make it clear that I love my brother very much. However, the antics that happened between us become a great illustration of what brothers and sisters in the body of Christ do with each other.
One morning I sat down to a wonderful breakfast of waffles and milk. It was so delicious. I eat first and drink second because when I was young I was taught to do so. This stopped me from getting full on the drink and not eating my food. When I finished eating, I was joyful about enjoying a full cup of cold milk. It’s a perfect complement to rich, sweet syrup. Unfortunately my brother had put salt in it. Now, for those of you that don’t spend much time in the kitchen, salt and milk are the same color—white. This means that you can’t see when someone pours salt in your milk. I vulnerably swallowed.
The Bible speaks about milk. It uses milk as a reference to foundational doctrines in the Word of God. Peter tells new believers that they should desire the milk of the Word so that they can begin to grow spiritually.
“As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:” (1 Peter 2:2)
Regarding foundational doctrines in the Bible, they are necessary, but are not meant to sustain Christians throughout their entire walk with Christ. Eventually we must graduate to meat according to Hebrews 5:12-14. For those that desire to get off of the milk, it can be challenging. Many times, even their leaders do not know how to move beyond milk. When these people find a way to go deeper into their faith it can cause them to look down on others that are still on the milk of the Word. It can cause them to feel a false superiority. As we move deeper into the faith, we must love and pray for those that aren’t ready to move deeper. The goal is to encourage and empower, not accuse and tear down with an air of arrogance and superiority. Don’t salt their milk.
On another occasion we were in the car driving to the beach. At this time in my life I had several things simultaneously working against me. I needed glasses at an early age. Using my fashion sense, I made the most logical conclusion and picked big ones. I was also very skinny. I couldn’t gain weight no matter what. I hadn’t discovered hair gel yet, and so my hair was typically a giant poof. In addition, my front teeth grew in full-sized when I was still in second grade. I will honestly admit that sometimes they looked bigger than me. As we were driving to the beach with our cousins we were eating Nerds© candy. My brother commented, “Hey Daniel, it’s a box of nerds. Jump in!”
Unity is not going to be furthered by focusing on the blemishes of others. Here is what the Bible says:
“And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:3-5)
The reason why Jesus tells us to remove the plank in our own eye is to make us skillful in removing the speck in our brother’s eye. When the plank is out of our eye, our attempts at helping our brother are empowering! When the plank is in our proverbial eye we can’t see what we’re doing. We will inevitably offend and tear down. If your attempts at speaking truth to others (particularly your brothers and sisters in Christ) repeatedly results in offense and backlash, it may be time to check your own eye.
When I was in high school my brother and I got in a fight. I roughed him up a little bit. It wasn’t anything personal; it was just that I was defining my boundaries (I know this is a poor excuse!). I don’t particularly remember the details, but I do remember that I hurt him. This happened shortly after I joined the wrestling team. As a result, my mom scolded me and told me that the next time I did something like this to my brother I would lose sports. This served as a turning point in my life. I decided that I would rather have sports than the freedom to give my brother the smack down. This cost me big time.
Since my brother knew the stakes, his goal became to make me lose sports. Can you imagine? He invented ways to provoke me to anger. It was like a game for him. He knew that I wouldn’t be roughing him up anymore, and he cast off all restraints. Ultimately, this probably caused us to have a better relationship in the long run, but initially it forced me to develop patience.
Patience is a virtue. Sometimes it seems like our brothers and sisters in Christ go out of their way to give us every reason to knock them upside the head. We must remember that they remain our family in Christ. Maintaining unity with them requires patience and forgiveness. This is what is written:
“Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” (Matthew 18:21-22)
Discussion
1. What does patience mean to you?
2. What has tested your patience in the past week?
3. Did you pass the test?
4. When was the last time you prayed for patience?
5. How often are we to forgive the offences that others cause us?
