This doesn’t mean, of course, that we have only a hope of future joys—we can be full of joy here and now even in our trials and troubles. Taken in the right spirit these very things will give us patient endurance; this in turn will develop a mature character, and a character of this sort produces a steady hope, a hope that will never disappoint us. Already we have some experience of the love of God flooding through our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us. Romans 5:3-5, [J.B. Phillips NT].
My son, Matthew, is a competitive swimmer. Many evenings of the week involve him ploughing up and down the pool refining his fitness and technique. Swimming seems to be a sport that takes a huge amount of time to master, and mile after mile of blue pool tiles have to be endured to stand a chance of competing successfully at a gala. It is maybe not surprising that many promising swimmers give up the sport in their early teens.
I was reading a swimming blog that likened swim training to putting jelly bean sweets in a jar. Each sweet represented a training session and a full jar being ready for a big gala. I must admit that I find this incremental approach quite frustrating, and wish that he could just fast forward a few years to see how far Matthew gets in the sport (and cut down my taxi-service to the pool).
Of course it is the same with most things. We need patience and determination to learn a musical instrument, earn a degree or knit a jumper. The main lessons, however are often what we learn along the way, and how that changes us. Do we end up frustrated and disappointed or do we learn from our experiences and end up having something to offer others?
If we are able to share our experience with God through prayer, I am sure we are in a much better place to take these things “in the right spirit” and learn the lessons and develop the mature character that Paul talks about. I hope Matthew (and I) can do that with swimming, with the success, failure and endurance tests he encounters along the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment