…Your Best Takes Time!
S:
James 1:2-5
Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
(NASB)
O:
From one of the most practical books in the Bible, we find the admonition to persist because that is the only way for us to attain perfection. We shouldn’t expect to have a perfect faith unless we have taken the time investing in reading the Bible and praying. As human beings, there are not many of us that can be perfect at anything without practicing and enduring in practicing, however, I am not inferring that we can be perfect…we are human beings.
A:
I have two illustrations out of this passage from personal experience. The first has to do with the glut of “performance shows” that are currently on TV. Living in a houseful of females, it is not easy to admit that I am the one that cries at performances the most often. I can’t help but tear up when a good performance is done. I try not to hit Youtube too often, because it usually costs me far to much time, but one of the things that I like watching the most is the highlights from the performance shows. When I see a great performance, I can’t help myself, the tears start streaming down my cheeks…really not the kind of admission that a senior male wants to make, but the evidence is rather unavoidable. What we forget is the amount of work that has gone on before this particular performance, and it doesn’t matter whether they talk about singing to their cat, or in the shower, or the years of traveling the roads to churches or bars and clubs, there has almost always been a huge amount of work put in before we get to see the performance we just witnessed.
The second illustration from this past weekend brings me back down to earth. I had made known to all of the inhabitants of our household that we needed to do your annual fall yard cleanup. In the part of the universe in which we live, bright, dry Saturdays are fewer and farther between, and we need to make use of this one. Well, when I was still the only one up by late morning, and my schedule was becoming seriously affected, I was less than hospitable when they finally did appear. You would think that after 40 some odd years of following Christ, I would have a better handle on my emotions and
What does all of this foregoing have to do with marriage, you may rightly ask. My response would be this…marriage takes constant work, and if we don’t keep our eye on the prize, ie., representing and being an image of Christ, by allowing ourselves to take centre stage, the performance goes off the rails, and just like an out of tune singer, no one wants to see or hear your performance. And yes, I did apologize to all concerned for my lousy attitude on Saturday. A great marriage takes time and constant effort, but even after the proverbial 10,000 hours of concerted effort, it is still possible to turn in a less than stellar performance.
P:
Lord, please help us to remember that we are all image bearers of you, and that we need to continually remind ourselves that if we are not reflecting you, we are reflecting ourselves and we are no different than any one else. Amen.