Charlie Brown, (remember him?) was once talking with his friend Lucy about the meaning of life. Lucy asks Charlie Brown, "Do you think life has any meaning?" Charlie Brown starts to answer her, but she interrupts with, "I mean, do you think life has any meaning after you've failed nine spelling tests in a row and your teacher hates you?" To which Charlie Brown calmly says, "That's a different question." He’s right.
When I was going to university, I became somewhat interested in what is known as etymology. Etymology is the study of the history and development of words. Recently I was reading about the word "sabotage." The word originated in the 1800's in France, from "sabot" which is a wooden shoe. Back then, when workers in French factories were unhappy, they would throw a "sabot," a wooden shoe, into the machinery, thus "sabotaging" it. There are times in my life when I feel like a wooden shoe has been thrown into my machinery. On those days I sympathize a lot with the little plaque that someone once gave me, with the words, "leave me alone, I’m having a crisis."
We've all had days like that, especially these last few weeks. We were just trying to get back into a normal routine after the busy Christmas season, when winter struck with a vengeance. The first Sunday of the new year we canceled church. Meetings and choir rehearsals have been canceled since. School has been canceled several times. I have heard from some of you about dead batteries, snow removal equipment breakage, plugged driveways, and stuck vehicles. It’s been much colder than any one of likes, and the snow just keeps coming.
Last Wednesday I was blowing snow when the engine of my snow blower suddenly began to lose power. I noticed a tremendous amount of blow-by smoke coming from the crankcase ventilation tube (I think that's what it’s called), and when I saw that, I knew I was in trouble. Sure enough, it soon proceeded to blow out much of it’s crankcase oil, and then there was a strange clunk, and the engine died. So now its back to a shovel. O well, spring will be here soon, right?
Did you see on the news this week how the people of Toronto are losing their patience, especially with the transit system? Toronto is equipped to deal with normal winter weather, but this winter has been rather abnormal. They even had to bring the army in. People are angry, and they are losing their patience. Mild mannered Canadians are becoming hostile with each other, even causing injuries. Can you imagine? And all because they are asked to put up with some difficulties in our lives. So this morning it might be a good time just to talk about patience for a few minutes. The Bible shows us that Paul had many difficult days, and yet he could write these words: "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is being revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. . ." That doesn't sound much like a man who is angry and frustrated, does it? That sounds to me like a man who has learned to deal with hard times.
Some time ago Dennis Voskuil wrote a biography of Dr. Robert Schuller in a book, called Mountains into Goldmines. (Grand Rapids, MI, Eerdmans, 1983) In it he describes Schuller’s boyhood days during the worst of the depression, and the terrible drought of the thirties on his father's Iowa farm. It was so bad that one year he was only able to harvest a one half wagon full of ear corn from the 160 acres he had planted. Recalling this, Schuller himself later wrote a book in which he gives this great affirmation, “tough times never last, tough people do.”
With that affirmation in mind, we ask the question, "How can we deal with life's hardships?" The solution comes in some very familiar words that are sometimes forgotten when the going gets tough.
The first is word is patience. One of the elements of patience is the ability to wait. Our society is one of instant gratification. We just cannot wait for anything. If we see something we desire, we will try our best to acquire it immediately. Even if we do decide to wait, it will not be for very long, at least not compared to some Old Testament characters. For example:
Can you imagine waiting forty years or more for a particular event to happen? And these are just a few of the Bible's many examples. Patience is probably the hardest virtue for most of us to acquire. Grant it, the Bible tells us that faith will remove all obstacles, but can we expect them to be removed immediately? We need to remember that God's timetable is not always the same as ours. Often, that's a hard lesson for us to learn. It’s not always easy for us to have patience with God, or perhaps even with our spouse or with our children; certainly not with life in general. And yet we must have patience, for there will be times in our lives when we will be at our wits end. Patience then is an essential ingredient when the going gets tough
A young man, a Christian, went to an older believer to ask for prayer. "Will you please pray that I may be more patient?" he asked. The aged saint agreed, and began to pray, "Lord, send this young man tribulation in the morning; send this young man tribulation in the afternoon; send this young man...." At that point the young Christian blurted out, "No, no, I didn't ask you to pray for tribulation. I wanted you to pray for patience." "Ah," responded the wise Christian, "it's through tribulation that we learn patience."
The second word is perseverance. Thomas Edison once said that “genius is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent perspiration.” He demonstrated this belief by perseverance in all that he did. He would try anything when working on his inventions. When about 10,000 experiments with a storage battery failed to produce results, a friend once tried to console him. “Why, I have not failed, Edison said, "I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work." In his search for an electric light bulb, Thomas Edison showed great perseverance, and after many failures he was finally successful on October 19, 1879.
Charles F. Kettering founder of Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (Delco for you GM fans), worked on a lightweight two-cycle diesel engine (which made the diesel locomotive practical). In order to develop this new diesel engine he tried one thing after another for about six years until he finally found an answer.
The Pacific Telephone Company once made twenty-five studio takes of a 7-1/2-second recording, which it planned to use as one of its recorded messages. They wanted the tape to project both warmth and authority. Every syllable was planned. The person recorded was a professional speaker and a member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. Yet, because the message recorded was so important and would be heard by up to two million people daily, twenty-five takes were made before the best one was selected. (Robert W. Olson, The Art of Creative Thinking, New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1978: Quoted by King Duncan).
From just these examples you can see the importance of perseverance. When the going gets tough, it takes patience and perseverance to keep going. Like the following little poem tells us, perseverance pays off. It’s about two frogs. Listen:
Two frogs fell into a can of cream
-- or so I've heard it told
The sides of the can were shiny and steep,
The cream was deep and cold,
"Oh, what's the use?" said No. 1,
"tis fate -- no help's around --
Good-bye, my friend! Good-bye, sad world!"
And weeping still, he drowned.
But No. 2 of sterner stuff,
dog paddled in surprise,
The while he wiped his creamy face
and dried his creamy eyes.
"I'll swim awhile, at least," he said
-- or so it has been said --
"It wouldn't really help the world
if one more frog was dead."
An hour or two he kicked and swam --
not once he stopped to mutter,
But kicked and swam, and swam and
kicked, then hopped out, via butter.
The third word is perspective. Paul had perspective. He had the proper view of things. He could deal with things like shipwrecks and beatings, humiliation and imprisonment because he put them in proper perspective. He believed that the suffering he was experiencing were not to be compared to the glory that would be bestowed one day upon those who are faithful in serving Christ. He believed that this perspective should not only be his, but that of all Christians. "I consider that what WE suffer. . ." he writes. He includes all of us.
Putting this into proper perspective, is very important. We not only want instant gratification in our society, but we also seem to think that we may expect to live in a world that is free from pain, and suffering. We want guaranteed pleasantness. No doubt, much suffering has been eliminated since Paul’s time, but the reality is, it still exists. And yet, with Paul, we may say that this suffering cannot be compared with the glory that is yet to come. How does Paul know? Because Christ suffered. We may put our suffering into perspective based on Christ's suffering, as we "wait for God to make us his children, and set our whole being free." Free from what? Free from suffering. Free from sin. Free from everything that has a negative affect on our lives today.
The last word is prayer. It's prayer that helps us find the proper perspective. I don't know how we can let go of a lot of our fears and frustrations when life gets tough, except through prayer. Ask God for the patience, the perseverance, the perspective you need. We cannot see what lies ahead in our lives, but we have God's promise that he will never leave us. And we have Christ who suffered for us so that some day all suffering may be removed from us. “It is by this hope that we are saved," Paul writes. And then he adds these words, "If we see what we hope for, it really isn't hope at all." He right you know. "But if we hope for what do not see. . ." then we're back to our first word; patience. Along with that we need perseverance, perspective and prayer.
There is yet one more word, and that word is work. When the going gets tough, if you will just keep on doing what needs to be done, with patience, perseverance and prayer, God will help get through your problems. Yes, the going may get tough for any of us at times. Yet our lives are easy compared to Paul's, and still, he never lost his enthusiasm, nor his zeal. A great faith allowed him to keep going and to be victorious over the obstacles that confronted him.
Patience, perseverance, perspective, prayer, and work, common words with great meaning. Just keep hanging in there. And keep in mind the promise that sustained Paul: "I consider that the sufferings of the present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us."
