Doing Uncertainty Well

The scripture says a lot about seeking the Lord and getting wisdom from Him on the direction He wants you to go. But what about that most dreaded in-between stage, when you’re praying for wisdom and getting nothing, and no doors seem to be opening, and you feel unsettled - like you know your time in a particular circumstance or life stage is short, but you have not yet been released?

In a word, what about waiting?

The Fruit of the Spirit

Patience is a fruit of the Spirit... but it comes as a result of a process.

Paul lists the “fruit” that we bear when we’re walking with God’s spirit as “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and self-control” (Gal 5:22-23). 

Peter gives a similar list, but he doesn’t call them fruit.  His list looks like this (2 Peter 1:5-7):

1. Add to your faith, goodness.  This makes sense, because without faith we can’t even become God’s kids.  So you have to start with that - faith is the seed that produces the fruit of goodness.  In the Old Testament, God started by giving the Israelites the Law.  They didn’t understand why they were doing what they were doing, but the Law produced “goodness” - meaning they weren’t killing each other and cheating on their spouses, and that sort of thing.


2. And to goodness, knowledge.  God didn’t want them to stop there, though.  He wanted the Israelites to know Him, not just to obey a set of rules.  God wanted them to “act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).  Goodness therefore leads to knowledge - knowledge of the Lord.


3. And to knowledge, self-control.  Now that we know what God asks us to do, and we know God himself, we need the ability to control ourselves in order to do what He is asking of us... but we don’t have the ability to control ourselves unless He gives it to us (remember Paul talking about how he used to continually do what he did not want to do, Rom 7:15-20? Instead, we get the fruit of self-control by getting to know the Holy Spirit (which is why Peter lists it after knowledge.)  So knowledge is the seed that produces the fruit of self-control.


4. And to self-control, PERSEVERANCE.  We may have learned to subjugate the desires of the moment for the longer-term goal, but what happens when the longer-term goal looks REALLY far away, like it’s never going to happen?  That’s why we need perseverance.  The word implies a struggle: it’s suffering without quitting.  It’s hard, but we stick it out.  The writer of Hebrews says, “You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised” (10:36). 


5. And to perseverance, godliness.  Notice that the corresponding fruit to perseverance is patience.  While the word perseverance implies a struggle, the word patience implies rest.  You’re not struggling anymore.  You know that God is going to come through.  Perseverance is the seed, and eventually it bears the fruit of patience.  Once you’ve got that, once you’re in rest, you become godly.  This was one of the key traits that set Jesus apart: when the storm blew up, while the rest of the disciples were freaking out, He was sleeping in the boat.  He’d said they were going to get to the other side, and He knew they were going to - he didn’t have to persevere through the storm anymore.  He was in rest.  He was godly.


6. And to godliness, brotherly kindness.  Paul lists kindness after godliness.  Now that you’re in rest, you’re not so worried about meeting your own needs anymore; you know God’s got you covered, and you can wait peacefully for Him to come through.  Now you have energy to spare, and you can use it to see and joyfully meet the desires and needs of those around you.  (The fruit of kindness is joy, because it feels pretty great to help others.) 


7. And to brotherly kindness, love.  This is the ultimate destination - to sow love into the lives of others, as we have received it from God.  (“Freely you have received; freely give,” Matt 10:8.)

What this tells me is that we can’t just pray for patience and get it, in the same way that you can’t just pray for a Ph.D. and get it without putting in the necessary time and effort.  It happens as a result of a process - that’s how God set it up.  We have to first believe God, then follow after Him, then get to know Him, and then we gain His power to control ourselves and persevere, even in the face of hardship or long delays.  Once we learn how to do this, we bear the fruit of patience.  That’s when we can “sleep in the boat,” as it were.  We’re not worried about the circumstances - now we can “walk by faith and not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7), bec