Getting My Masters in Faith

After a week of profitable discussion on women's ministry issues here and here, I'm going to take a moment to reflect on a different issue. This involves my personal journey of faith. In the preface of Practical Theology for Women, I gave testimony of a very intense few years in which God showed up in my life in a big way, teaching me things about Himself through tangible circumstances. I learned a lot. I learned that God is trustworthy. I learned that God does things very differently than I would if I were God. I learned that His way of doing things was brilliant when compared to mine. I learned that His timetable was very different than mine. I learned that He is the source of all good things in my life. I learned that He is a sure foundation when things don't go as I expect. There were moments when God was silent. There were moments when I was fearful. But God always came through--usually within days, weeks, or months of whatever crisis I faced.

I thought I had graduated from the school of faith. I had persevered for TWO LONG YEARS (don't laugh). God had showed up in my life in big ways. He had increased my faith. I had learned the lessons I needed to equip me for a lifetime.

Cough.

Oh niave me. I'd like to think that was my bachelors degree in faith and now I am on to my masters degree. But it may be more like kindergarten to grade school. Whatever the best analogy, I realize I am still learning of faith. I am still being taught through the Word and my circumstances. But I've graduated from some level of faith learning and testing, and this new season in the school of faith is much tougher than the last season. In my undergraduate season, God showed up in tangible ways in my circumstances every few days. There were weeks and months between the big things, but He still showed up in ways that were obvious. Now, not so much. Now, I wait for years. Still waiting. Still praying. Now when He shows up, it's in the parables in which He instructs us to persevere in prayer (Luke 11). It's in Ephesians 4 when He teaches that walking worthy of the gospel of Christ means I bear long with others. It's in James when He teaches that the man who perseveres is blessed. It's in the Scripture that teaches life is a marathon, not a sprint.

I realize now that round 1, the bachelors degree of faith, was a sprint. I thought it was God's big teaching event in my life. Now I realize it was only the warm up, preparing me for the marathon of persevering endurance to which He has called us all. I wouldn't trade what I'm learning in what I sarcastically refer to as my masters degree in faith for anything in the world. But at the same time, it wasn't what I bargained for.

James 1:2-4 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

First of all, I don't think of enduring as pure joy. The first place I wrestle with God in this passage is how to see this long, hard graduate education as PURE JOY. Secondly, I am rebuked by the Word that says PERSEVERANCE will make me mature and complete. I have no desire for long term peseverance. I want short term deliverance! So I see two objectives in phase 1 of masters degree training in faith.

1) Find the gospel joy in long term endurance in hard seasons. I CAN be joyful in this hard season.

2) Value perseverance as the very thing through which God will bring me to maturity in Him.

I haven't yet met these objectives. I've just identified them. But I think therein lies more than half the battle. Dear sister who has graduated past niave faith in which life issues reconciled in weeks or months and who now endures for years in a place you long for deliverance, I am with you. I trust God will give us each gospel joy, that beautiful fruit of the Spirit, in the midst of our long marathon. And I believe in faith that persevering itself will produce in you and I a beautiful maturity in Christ that will reflect well on the beauty of God's good plan for us all.