Steadfastness
James 5:8 You also, be patient.
Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
Steadfastness could also be called what? Patience. So what does patience look like? How do I work through this, keeping my eyes fixed on Jesus, establishing my heart, how do I be patient in my trials and sufferings?
James 1:2-4 2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
4 And let steadfastness have its full effect,
that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
4 And let steadfastness have its full effect,
that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Channel the bad stuff. We live in an agricultural community. If you drive around, you’ll see a lot of barns and houses out in the middle of the fields. What do they have on top of them? They have this maybe 12 or 18-inch piece of metal sticking straight up like a spike – a lightening rod! So when these massive storms come through and lightening strikes, instead of catching the barn or the house on fire, it hits the lightening rod and is channeled safely into the ground. When the storms of life come through with all their bad stuff, we have a lightening rod up! We have somebody who will take the hit with us and channel all the bad stuff away from us. How do we learn patience? Have somebody who can help us channel out all the bad, evil, yuck that’s happening in our lives. That person needs to be Godly, humble, and loving. Do you have somebody like that in your life? Obviously Jesus is there, but if you don’t have a friend like that, start praying for one. Ask God for somebody you can trust to help you see through the bad, to walk with you, so you don’t catch fire and explode. Some of us feel like we’re going to blow up now and then! Which leads me to the second thing:
Have a pop-off valve. My grandpa used own a lot of rental properties. It never failed that when we’d sit down for Sunday dinner or after a long day or work, he’d get a phone call. It would be from one of his renters saying there was an issue. You may be renting, and there’s old equipment in the house, and it falls apart. One of these things is called a water heater. On the water heater, there’s a thing that my grandpa used to call a “pop-off valve.” It took me years to figure out that he wasn’t calling that a “Popov Valve!” It’s actually called a release valve. What happens to a water heater that has a broken release valve? It ceases to be a water heater and it begins to be a bomb, and it’s going to explode. It’s going to blow up if there’s not a release valve working on it. Guess what? As we’re working through some of our trials, struggles, issues, and burdens, as we’re carrying them around because we refuse to lay them down, we need a release valve. The world frequently tries to find this in alcohol, sex, smoking, gambling, anything to take our minds off our problems. The trouble is that when we take our minds off our sufferings and burdens and put them on something that doesn’t point us to God, all we’re doing is building another bomb with a broken release valve. Here’s what it looks like: your release valve will be explained in verses 9-11, but it looks like laying aside your burdens, even for a little while, not focusing on the bills you haven’t paid, not focusing on why the relationship isn’t working, not focusing on your health, and saying you’re going to rechannel this, and that you’re not here to be served but to serve. Ask God to show you someone you can help – it will take your mind off your problems as you help someone else.