I have slowly been getting stuffy and losing my voice for the past few days, and it worsened last night. I get sinus infections every Spring and Fall, and have since I started making an annual practice of getting my face crushed by well-meaning but overaged and undercoordinated gents in Columbia and Fulton’s basketball leagues. I have broken my nose four times and two years ago received a minor concussion, and so my sinuses are totally jacked-up and in need of surgery.

So, perhaps needless to say, I have a sinus infection. I woke up feeling a bit under the weather, but prepared for my day as usual, including my 30-minute Thursday morning workout. The workout didn’t help anything and I felt like collapsing at the end of it. When Jessie (and Joseph) woke up around 7:30, I tried talking to them and realized I had no voice. Given the handful of people with swine flu at Karis, I texted in sick to work and made my way to urgent care.

I have spent the whole day trying to fall asleep and trying not to talk–not even to make “gooing” noises with Big Joe, who has become quite the little noise-maker. I don’t feel much better, and am learning a few things about patience.

I am not intrinisically a patient man, I fear. I was actually reading about patience last night while having my usual bedtime bowl of chocolate ice cream. (I buy plain chocolate ice cream then drop a huge glob of peanut butter into it and mix it up.) I’ve been reading John Piper’s massive treatise on faith, The Purifying Power of Living by Faith in Future Grace, for several months, which is to say that I almost never pick up a book and read straight through it without picking up three or four other books before entirely finishing it. Hence the reading list at right. But here’s what Dr. Piper had to say (p. 173):

Patience is the evidence of an inner strength. Impatient people are weak, and therefore dependent on external supports–like schedules that go just right and circumstances that support their fragile hearts. Their outbursts of oaths and threats and harsh criticisms of the culprits who crossed their plans do not sound weak. But that noise is all a camouflage of weakness. Patience demands tremendous inner strength. For the Christian, this strength comes from God.

Piper’s thesis is that true faith is the embracing of spiritual beauty; that is, “being satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus” (p. 206). It’s not enough to trust the grace we received from God in the past. Rather true faith trusts that God will be gracious to us in the future and we hope in his promises. The Old Testament patriarchs, priests, and prophets looked forward to the coming of the Messiah. The New Testament apostles and church planters looked forward to the return of Christ and the resurrection of all things for his glory. Today, we “lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and [we] run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-2).

The man of patience can believe in all seasons, and in all states of health and fitness, the lament of the prophet Jeremiah (Lamentations 3:25):

The Lord is good to those who wait for him.

Be easy, folks.

Jeremy (deacon for c-groups)

Whatever you think of Tony Snow’s politics, read where he shares what he has learned battling cancer. What a challenge for us! And what an encouragement as some within our church battle this disease.

The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies.