Steadying the Heart When Life Feels Slow, Unfair, or Irritating
James 5:7-10
“Strengthen your hearts for the coming of the Lord is near”
When James says ‘strengthen your hearts’, he is saying set your hearts on a firm basis.
It is something that we say every time we have a communion service.
We say in the Nicene creed, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end”.
Paul writes of communion, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again”. (1 Corinthians 11:26). And so every time we eat the bread and drink the cup, we say that as we do this, ‘we look for the coming of your kingdom’.
Our communion, our sharing of the bread and wine, is a foretaste, a glimpse of the future banquet of God. Our receiving of Christ in the bread and wine, our sense of the presence of God – even when it is faint - is a foretaste, a glimpse, of that time when we will see Christ face to face, and we will know God as God already knows us.
And every time we pray the Lord’s prayer, we say, ‘Your Kingdom come’
Our hope is that one day, the Lord who loves us, who became a human being for us and who died for us, and who we are beginning to learn to love, will return.
So strengthen your heart. Knock that post in. It is important. It is a conviction which shapes how we live.
The conviction that the Lord is coming helps us to learn patience
v7: ‘be patient until the coming of the Lord’
V8: ‘You also must be patient’
James tells us to look to the patience of the farmer. Farmers can prepare the ground, put in fertiliser, sow the seed – but then, then they wait. They need the early and the late rains. They live with the reality that there is something that is bigger than them, outside their control.
I wonder whether one of our problems is that we like to think that we are in control of our lives, and when we have to wait, we realise we are not quite as important as we think that we are.
I remember one occasion when I was in a queue at an underground station waiting to buy a ticket. And the ticket seller was having a conversation with someone who he obviously knew. And I can recall the anger arising in me. Why did he feel that he could keep me waiting?
Someone told me about a woman who was standing in a queue at the border in the days of the old Soviet Union. The officials were slowly going through people’s baggage (as they were want to do) and the queue was not moving. She was getting increasingly frustrated. Finally, she snapped. She picked up her cases, said, ‘I am British’, and walked straight through customs - past some astonished Soviet guards.
In previous verses (James 4:13-17), James has challenged those who are materially wealthy for their presumption that the world rotates around them. They have their plans and they expect that what they want will happen. The universe will fit in with their plans. “Come now’, says James, ‘you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money’. He says, “Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring”.
Often it is when we face things that are bigger than us, we realise we have to wait. I am not sure it is accidental that people who are in hospital are called patients.
And holding on to the conviction that beyond and behind all of this, behind our busyness and activity, there is a God who is in control, and that the Lord Jesus will come, and that we have no idea when that will be - is one of the big realities which help us to realise that the world is bigger than us, that it does not rotate around us and that there are times when all we can do is wait – but wait in hope.
2. The conviction that the Lord is coming can set us free from judgementalism.
‘Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged’
We are experts at grumbling. We grumble about things – the NHS, the weather, the Church of England – but James specifically speaks about grumbling against other people.
We pigeonhole people and then we judge them.
We move from concern to complaint to judgement.
‘Management haven’t a clue’, ‘Honestly they are useless’, ‘They are so full of themselves’, ‘Well what can you expect from her’.
“Strengthen your hearts for the coming of the Lord is near”
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| Images from the west side of St Marys Westgate, Burnham Market parapet. The first arch shows the attendant carrying the head of John the Baptist, and the second shows Herod and Herodias, sitting at table on which are dishes, while Salome is tumbling tête à terre before them. Photos taken by drone, courtesy of Sowerbys (and the lightning conductor cable across the attendant has been erased courtesy of AI!). |
When James says ‘strengthen your hearts’, he is saying set your hearts on a firm basis.
I think of a post in the ground. It has become a bit wobbly.
The post James wants us to knock in deeper is this conviction: the Lord is coming.
V7: be patient ‘until the coming of the Lord’
V8: ‘for the coming of the Lord is near’
V9: ‘see the judge is standing at the doors’
Our conviction is that one day the Lord Jesus will return.
The post James wants us to knock in deeper is this conviction: the Lord is coming.
V7: be patient ‘until the coming of the Lord’
V8: ‘for the coming of the Lord is near’
V9: ‘see the judge is standing at the doors’
Our conviction is that one day the Lord Jesus will return.
It is something that we say every time we have a communion service.
We say in the Nicene creed, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end”.
Paul writes of communion, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again”. (1 Corinthians 11:26). And so every time we eat the bread and drink the cup, we say that as we do this, ‘we look for the coming of your kingdom’.
Our communion, our sharing of the bread and wine, is a foretaste, a glimpse of the future banquet of God. Our receiving of Christ in the bread and wine, our sense of the presence of God – even when it is faint - is a foretaste, a glimpse, of that time when we will see Christ face to face, and we will know God as God already knows us.
And every time we pray the Lord’s prayer, we say, ‘Your Kingdom come’
Our hope is that one day, the Lord who loves us, who became a human being for us and who died for us, and who we are beginning to learn to love, will return.
So strengthen your heart. Knock that post in. It is important. It is a conviction which shapes how we live.
The conviction that the Lord is coming helps us to learn patience
v7: ‘be patient until the coming of the Lord’
V8: ‘You also must be patient’
James tells us to look to the patience of the farmer. Farmers can prepare the ground, put in fertiliser, sow the seed – but then, then they wait. They need the early and the late rains. They live with the reality that there is something that is bigger than them, outside their control.
I wonder whether one of our problems is that we like to think that we are in control of our lives, and when we have to wait, we realise we are not quite as important as we think that we are.
I remember one occasion when I was in a queue at an underground station waiting to buy a ticket. And the ticket seller was having a conversation with someone who he obviously knew. And I can recall the anger arising in me. Why did he feel that he could keep me waiting?
Someone told me about a woman who was standing in a queue at the border in the days of the old Soviet Union. The officials were slowly going through people’s baggage (as they were want to do) and the queue was not moving. She was getting increasingly frustrated. Finally, she snapped. She picked up her cases, said, ‘I am British’, and walked straight through customs - past some astonished Soviet guards.
In previous verses (James 4:13-17), James has challenged those who are materially wealthy for their presumption that the world rotates around them. They have their plans and they expect that what they want will happen. The universe will fit in with their plans. “Come now’, says James, ‘you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money’. He says, “Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring”.
Often it is when we face things that are bigger than us, we realise we have to wait. I am not sure it is accidental that people who are in hospital are called patients.
And holding on to the conviction that beyond and behind all of this, behind our busyness and activity, there is a God who is in control, and that the Lord Jesus will come, and that we have no idea when that will be - is one of the big realities which help us to realise that the world is bigger than us, that it does not rotate around us and that there are times when all we can do is wait – but wait in hope.
2. The conviction that the Lord is coming can set us free from judgementalism.
‘Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged’
We are experts at grumbling. We grumble about things – the NHS, the weather, the Church of England – but James specifically speaks about grumbling against other people.
We pigeonhole people and then we judge them.
We move from concern to complaint to judgement.
‘Management haven’t a clue’, ‘Honestly they are useless’, ‘They are so full of themselves’, ‘Well what can you expect from her’.
And grumbling about our politicians is a national pastime.
It might feel small and harmless, but we place ourselves as better than the other person and assume that we can fault them.
And the devastating thing about grumbling is that it can crush other people, it trains the heart to judge, and it sets us on a cycle of negativity. We start to look for the bad in the other and, of course, we will find it.
When we grumble about someone, we are like the person who sees a speck of dust in their neighbour’s eye. We say, ‘Look at that speck of dust. No wonder they can’t see straight.’ And we do not see the plank of wood in our own eye.
James reminds us that it is Jesus, the Lord, when he returns, who will come as judge – he alone knows the true state of our heart.
He writes, ‘The judge is standing at the door’.
He is at the door of the room in which we find ourselves. It is half open. Maybe he will come in – or maybe not just yet. But he is very close.
And remember that the one who stands at the door is the same one who has already given his life for us.
So, hold on to the conviction that the Lord is coming. It is a key Christian conviction. It helps us realise that reality is bigger than us and there are times when we can only wait; and it reminds us, when we begin to judge others, that he is the one who alone can judge.
James finishes this section by urging us to look at the prophets
“As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.” (James 5:10)
They spoke about the coming Messiah and the coming Kingdom
And they lived in the light of the coming Kingdom, the coming world – even if, in this world, they suffered greatly.
Often, they had to stand as a lone voice. It is hard to say one thing, when everyone else is saying something else.
Often, they had to speak very difficult truths.
They spoke of the love of God, but a love that included the judgement of God.
So, for instance, we read of John the Baptist who had to tell Herod that he couldn’t carry on with Herodias, who was his brother’s wife. It cost him his life – as we see in the scene from St Mary’s parapet.
The prophets were accused of being fanatical, traitors, wierdos, meddlers.
The writer to Hebrews echoes James. We are told of those who ‘for the sake of what was promised’, suffered ‘mocking and flogging, chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, sawn in two, killed by the sword; went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented – of whom the world was not worthy’.
They are our example: women and men who held on to that conviction that the Lord was coming, and who patiently endured ‘all things’ for the sake of the coming kingdom
So when life feels slow, unfair or it is not taking you as seriously as you think you should be taken, when you are tempted to be impatient, grumble or judge, James says, steady your heart. Knock that post in. The Lord is coming.
It might feel small and harmless, but we place ourselves as better than the other person and assume that we can fault them.
And the devastating thing about grumbling is that it can crush other people, it trains the heart to judge, and it sets us on a cycle of negativity. We start to look for the bad in the other and, of course, we will find it.
When we grumble about someone, we are like the person who sees a speck of dust in their neighbour’s eye. We say, ‘Look at that speck of dust. No wonder they can’t see straight.’ And we do not see the plank of wood in our own eye.
James reminds us that it is Jesus, the Lord, when he returns, who will come as judge – he alone knows the true state of our heart.
He writes, ‘The judge is standing at the door’.
He is at the door of the room in which we find ourselves. It is half open. Maybe he will come in – or maybe not just yet. But he is very close.
And remember that the one who stands at the door is the same one who has already given his life for us.
So, hold on to the conviction that the Lord is coming. It is a key Christian conviction. It helps us realise that reality is bigger than us and there are times when we can only wait; and it reminds us, when we begin to judge others, that he is the one who alone can judge.
James finishes this section by urging us to look at the prophets
“As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.” (James 5:10)
They spoke about the coming Messiah and the coming Kingdom
And they lived in the light of the coming Kingdom, the coming world – even if, in this world, they suffered greatly.
Often, they had to stand as a lone voice. It is hard to say one thing, when everyone else is saying something else.
Often, they had to speak very difficult truths.
They spoke of the love of God, but a love that included the judgement of God.
So, for instance, we read of John the Baptist who had to tell Herod that he couldn’t carry on with Herodias, who was his brother’s wife. It cost him his life – as we see in the scene from St Mary’s parapet.
The prophets were accused of being fanatical, traitors, wierdos, meddlers.
The writer to Hebrews echoes James. We are told of those who ‘for the sake of what was promised’, suffered ‘mocking and flogging, chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, sawn in two, killed by the sword; went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented – of whom the world was not worthy’.
They are our example: women and men who held on to that conviction that the Lord was coming, and who patiently endured ‘all things’ for the sake of the coming kingdom
So when life feels slow, unfair or it is not taking you as seriously as you think you should be taken, when you are tempted to be impatient, grumble or judge, James says, steady your heart. Knock that post in. The Lord is coming.
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