Photo by Parij Borgohain on Unsplash.
Have you ever faced an impossible situation with no idea where to start, much less how to get out of it?
Of course, you have; it’s called life, and everyone deals with it.
The beautiful life of a Christ-follower is a decision to have a close personal relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (the triune Godhead).
In the last installment of The Beautiful Life of a Christ-follower, we looked at:
The Jedi master, Qui-Gon, calmly says, “All right. I’m sure another solution will present itself.”
And it did.
- It is my decision to lean into Christ.
The Apostle Peter gives us sound counsel on this matter.
“Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.”
I Peter 5:7 New Living Translation
- You practice patience with a choice.
Practicing patience implies learning to have patience, which makes it a learned trait.
Some are psychologically wired to be more patient than others and more quickly learn to be patient. (I am not one of those people)
God, the Holy Spirit, is our helper, guiding us into the quiet places of our hearts and the passages of scripture that teach us how to be patient.
But it is a choice, and that must be made with determination.
(Please indulge in a small rabbit trail)
I recently watched a movie that powerfully taught me about fear—it wasn’t the focus of the show, just a couple of lines to stress a point.
Fear is a fabrication of your mind based on the information it has gathered.
A motivational speaker once described fear as False Evidence Appearing Real.
It is a fabrication of your mind, and it is based on information inputted into your mind.
(End the rabbit trail)
Do you suppose choosing to operate in patience based on biblical information inputted into your mind would help you be patient?
It is an interesting question.
Humanity acts (and reacts) to things based on inputted data—the things we see, hear, and speak. Over time, that data impacts how we react to a given situation.
Learning patience means choosing to respond to the Word of God over our learned behavior. It is a process (sometimes) slowly learned, and over time, it will impact how you react or respond to a given situation.
In the earlier illustration, the Jedi (Qui-Gon) was a seasoned master, which means learning patience takes time.
You can’t force these things
The biblical reference used in the last installment was,
“This is God’s Message to Zerubbabel: ‘You can’t force these things. They only come about through my Spirit,’ says God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
Zechariah 4:6 The Message
“They only come about through my Spirit” is of great importance to the Christ-follower.
The backbone of religion is the forged diligence of following the routine to which there is merit.
However, the choice to follow God, the Holy Spirit (the third person of the Godhead), is more about releasing your heart than your determination.
The beautiful life of the Christ-follower is choosing to surrender your heart to his desire for your life.
It is choosing to follow the teachings of the Bible over the data previously inputted into your mind.
It is essential to understand that the process is often slow but beneficial.
The question is, how do I accomplish this?
The primary answer is to develop a close personal relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—in other words, the Godhead.
However, learning requires a community and a community consists of like-minded people.
Some call it going to church, and some being the church, but I like to call it being together.
In the New Testament book of Acts, the early church began with everyone being together in one place, waiting on the same thing—the promise from Jesus of the Holy Spirit.
Some operated in leadership positions, serving positions, and receiving positions.
Everyone sought the same thing, and everyone helped each other.
Community is not about attending a service once a week and shaking a few hands of people you see there.
Community is about learning and growing together. It is about gleaning from the collective wisdom and experience of the more experienced members and encouraging the newer members to stick with it.
The closest thing to this in organized religion is small groups (given various names). Some are great, some are good, and some are okay.
You must find one that is “great” for you because this is how you grow into a close personal relationship with the Godhead.
The next installment may help you navigate life’s “patience-practicing” challenges.
A close personal relationship with the Godhead provides you a living hope. It is a living anticipation full of expectation of something good happening.
A close personal relationship with the Godhead is a journey. I invite you to follow along. As I learn, I will pass it along so you, too, can learn. I hope that as you learn, you can pass it along so that I (and others) might learn.
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