Not Perfect but Patient

Four weeks of Great Lent have come and gone and you’re still here. You haven’t given up yet, but you’re close. Fasting and extra prayers are taking a toll on your endurance. Being flooded with temptation is testing your patience. You may even be thinking of giving up the fight.

BRETHREN, we feel sure of better things that belong to salvation. For God is not so unjust as to overlook your work and the love which you showed for his sake in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Hebrews 6.9-12

It’s almost as if the Church and Saint Paul knew what it would feel like this ‘far in’ to Great Lent. As you enjoy your Saturday and the fast is eased up a bit, I encourage to you allow yourself some space to breathe. The reward coming from God will be worth your patience.

Great Lent takes its toll on everyone. It is the most spiritually intense period of the year. That means the devil is working overtime to make you feel like a failure. The only failure is giving up. Nobody is perfect.

Great Lent isn’t about perfection. Great Lent is about patience in the struggle. It is about hope in the coming reward from God. It is about standing up every time you fall, no matter how often that may be. Remember! We inherit the promise “through faith and patience.”

It can be easy to give up when we compare ourselves to the saints. They endured beatings and mockery and all sorts of torture for Christ. That may be true, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t fall to temptation. Sure, they finished on a ‘high note’, but every saint had their moments.

The saints are the ones we are supposed to imitate. One thing all the saints have in common. They didn’t give up, no matter how many times they fell. Here’s a reminder.

For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I ate, that I do.

Romans 7.15

If the great Saint Paul struggled to do what was right, what makes us think we will be perfect? Saint Paul wasn’t perfect. Saint Paul was patient, and we must have faith and be patient if we are going to inherit the promise of God.

Now, take a deep breath and finish the race we call Great Lent. We will do it together. We will inherit the promise of God, not because we are perfect, but because we are patient.