Patience in Our Perfection

James 1:4, “But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”

I am preparing a sermon for Sunday about men perfecting their spirituality, which ultimately can be applied to anyone. For this particular sermon I thought of 7 different areas that would help in learning to perfect our spirituality. As I was preparing one hit me particularly hard and flashed me back to four years earlier.

Erin and I were visiting our families in Ohio. We drove up from Charlotte, NC to visit everyone. I am not sure if it was a holiday or not, but I am sure it was cooler, as we had jackets on and the windows were up in the car. But, I will not forget the intersection or that day for the rest of my life.

We approached a four way intersection and traffic was to stop only on two sides of the road, across from each other. We approached one of the stop signs in my red Ford Contour. We were on the way to visit some of Erin’s family. Erin was in the passenger seat and Kayla was in the baby seat in the back of the car.

Another car was already on the opposite side of the car. He crossed over in his blue two door Ford F-150 pick-up truck. As he crossed the street he came very close to our car and it looked very purposeful. Instead of just ignoring it, remembering that I had two women in the car that I would give my life for, I said something while looking at him. I let my sinful nature get the best of me and became really impatient with the other man’s driving and his attitude. I wish this was the end. This day God would show me that I had an attitude of anger that stemmed from impatience.

I noticed that the car stopped in my rear view mirror and the man had his window rolled down and was yelling something. Again, instead of just driving away I let pride get in the way. Now my impatience led to anger and now pride. I rolled down my window and said something back about his driving, and from this point on I do not remember much, but Erin told me the rest of the story. I allowed my sinful nature to take over to a point that I did not know was there. I was a Seminary student and ministering to at-risk children in inner-city Charlotte. How could I struggle with this? I did not realize it was there as strong as it was. I have always struggled with anger throughout my life, but God demonstrated this day just how bad it was.

According to Erin, I became very irate and was yelling back and forth with the man. She was very frightened for her and Kayla. I cannot blame her. She said that I was trying to get my seatbelt off, but for some reason it would not release. We both know it was God now. The other man was already stepping out of the truck and starting to come to the car.

God knocked my sense back into me and I became fully aware again of my surroundings. Erin was very distraught and yelling at me to go. She was crying and bewildered. Before the man reached the window I turned onto the road and started driving away. Next thing we knew was the blue Ford truck was chasing us. He had turned around and was coming our way fast. Now that I was calming down I held up my cell phone so he would see me dialing and he then turned and left.

I have since asked forgiveness of my wife and more importantly repented before God, but the day will be burnt into my mind forever. God truly used that to show me that I had not yet overcome this sinful behavior. I sought diligently to be delivered through prayer, reading the Word and striving now to be like Christ in those situations.

Losing track that I needed to continually seek God and strive for perfection in Christ caused me to fall into a sinful pattern. God used it to bring me back to Him and to show me the next area of my life I needed to work on as I walk beside Him. Since then, through the grace of God, I have never come even close to being that angry. And I am conscious to continually grow in my relationship with Christ that it will not happen again. I never want to see Erin look at me that way again, and I especially never want feel that distant from God again.

Relaxing in our relationship with Christ can be costly to our lives. Impatience cost me my relationship with God and my wife for a time. It also showed me the importance of never thinking I “made it,” but to continually strive for perfection as Christ is perfect. This is how we stay in relationship with Him, as if we are striving to be like Him then we will continually be working on our relationship with Him. This will impact how we react to situations that would in the past have caused us to stumble.

I thank God nothing worse happened that day, and I also thanked Him for showing me where I fell short in my walk with Christ.

Are there areas that you need to work on, but think you can handle it on your own that need to be turned over to God?

Has God shown you areas through sinning that you need to work through? Have you done it?

Is your relationship with Christ close enough that when you are in situations that may cause you to sin, you will walk through it successfully? If not, then what are you going to do about it.

Matthew 5:48, “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”