The Long view - December 3

Today’s Reading: AM Psalm 119:1-24; PM Psalm 12, 13, 14; Amos 3:12-4:5; 2 Pet. 3:1-10; Matt. 21:23-32

Sometimes there is something inside me that cries out to go outside. I especially feel this when I’ve been cooped up too long at my desk—when I finally get the chance to slip out and walk through our memorial garden or sit along the stone wall that borders the paved trail on the east side of our campus. With each passing season, as the more recent plantings mature, our campus only grows in splendor and beauty, and I am finding that being in our wilderness is almost healing to who I am as a person. I need to see things blooming as the leaves fall, to see resurrection, to see the long view of the Saint Stephen’s landscape.

I can remember almost eight years ago, sitting with the group now aptly called the “Soil Sisters.” We had been talking about our campus and their need for affirmation of their vision for removing invasive species. We reflected that the project wasn’t something that needed to be completed in a year or two. I boldly claimed it was a 10-year project—although in reality, I should have realized it is a lifetime of work, or perhaps more like a 100-year project. In a world of urgency, the long view is often what is most helpful.

In 1 Peter 3, the writer is urging the early church to take the long view of their life and witness. These Christians were surrounded by forces that tried to reduce faith to the immediate—fear, pressure, conformity, retaliation, and reputation. Much like us at this very moment, they lived in a world where the loudest and most urgent voices demanded their attention. Yet Peter calls them toward something else:
“…Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing… let them turn away from evil and do good; let them seek peace and pursue it.”

This is long-view living. It is the kind of character that does not form in one moment—but is cultivated over years of choosing patience over anger, compassion over reaction, blessing over vengeance, trust over control.

Our culture is powered by immediacy—instant communication, instant opinion, instant outrage. Think of your smartphone which, unless you have actively taken steps to silence it, sends you a notification for nearly everything imaginable—pings and vibrations that draw us out of the moment, leaving us more anxious than ever. I wonder if this leads to spiritual anxieties that are equally immediate: How do I fix this now? Why isn’t this happening faster? Why won’t this change today?

But Peter’s audience knew something about endurance. They had to. They were suffering, misunderstood, surrounded by opposition, and still he tells them:
“But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.”
How is that for a long view?

We are in the season of Advent, when we wait patiently for the return of our Lord. That is taking the long view—waiting hopefully and patiently. Could our hope itself be an act of faithfulness to a fearful and hurting world?

Question for Self-Reflection: Where might God be inviting you this Advent to wait with hope rather than rush with anxiety?