PATIENCE LEADS US TO OUR TRUE SELVES
(September 19)
“But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and rulers for my name’s sake. But it will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony (εἰς μαρτύριον). Therefore settle it in your hearts not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But not a hair of your head shall be lost. By your patience (ἐν τῇ ὑπομονῇ ὑμῶν) possess/gain your souls.” (Lk 21: 12-19)
Here Christ speaks to me about the painful-yet-liberating process of becoming myself, – the self, that is, which He calls me to be, according to my vocation. It is the self that truly lives, in communion with the Source of Life, rather than just exists, cut off from Him in self-imposed bondage to the merely-human rulers and kings of this world.
The process by which I increasingly stand up straight and “possess my soul“ is not primarily courage, but “patience“ or “hypo-mone” in Greek, which literally means “a remaining behind.” It means sitting back and waiting for what God sends next. It is my old self that “sits back” in this process, allowing itself to be transfigured, by being led like a lamb, into the sometimes difficult responsibilities that any normal adult faces from time to time.
But let me not confuse patience with inactivity. I cannot be “led” to confront the difficult situations if I myself don’t put one foot in front of the other, – otherwise I would be dragged, rather than led. And one of my steps must be that I make a decision, or “settle it in my heart,“ not to act or speak or be on my own anymore, but in communion with God. So let me let Him be God in my life today, and hand things over to Him this morning, in some heartfelt prayer. He can and does empower me to be my true self, even after I’ve fallen away from His path. And this is something that “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men” can’t do, so I replace fear with faith this morning, and say, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”
