It’s not unusual to see other vehicles in our driveway. One person in particular in our congregation will only stop by at the house to chat with my husband in his shop because he’d prefer not to be seen at the pastor’s office at the church.
But one Monday afternoon as I turned into our driveway, irritation prickled up and down my skin as soon as I saw who was standing next to the large farm truck. It was the wife of a newly married couple from our church who had been struggling for quite a few months and had been going to my husband for pastoral counsel. Normally, I wouldn’t have been so bothered by the visit from this woman.
However, first off, it was my husband’s only day off in the week. He has worked intensely over the years to guard this day in order to keep his body and mind fit. Further, this couple had been calling him all weekend. He had met with them the day before at the church in person. He had purposely kept the phone off to protect his time for the day off and this precious lady drove to our house to find him!
Yes, I’m sure the fleshly protective wife was rising up in me at this moment, but I had to ask myself: “Was it wrong to feel this way? Was it fair to ask for at least one day in the week for my husband to have a break from the stresses of helping this couple? Are we not being patient or longsuffering if we don’t make ourselves available at all days and hours to our people?”
I wrestled with this for a while over the next few days while I checked my attitude towards this couple, as I prayed for them and as I prayed for God to give my husband wisdom as to how to handle this couple and their situation.
I came to a conclusion. It is our calling to reflect the patience of God to our people, but with wise boundaries that reflect truth and righteousness.
Just as Jesus cares tenderly for His wayward sheep – unfailing in His love and protection of them – we, as His undershepherds, should do the same. Jesus persevered in patience with His disciples despite their frequent lack of understanding of what He was doing. Remember the feeding of the 4,000? Yeah, that was after the feeding of the 5,000.
The disciples basically asked the same question they did with the 5,000 feeding—where will we get enough bread to feed all these people? The disciples still didn’t get it. Yet Jesus patiently repeated the miracle for the sake of teaching His slow-to-learn followers. He still fed the people because He had compassion on them (see Matthew 16:32). He even made leftovers! Truly, His patience seems to know no limits.
And yet…the Good Shepherd also used the rod of correction and discipline as comfort to His sheep (see Psalm 23:4b). Jesus had to frequently chasten His followers when they doubted Him and when they were missing His purpose. What was that purpose? To bear their load of sin, to absorb the wrath of God. When they were rebuked, they didn’t feel the comfort of the rod, but in time they knew why Jesus had to discipline them this way–because He had a better purpose in mind.
I’m sure it didn’t feel like comfort for our sister-in-Christ to not have my husband answer every phone call and text immediately. And he did meet with her that day she showed up at our house. But counsel had been given frequently and not readily taken and suggestions had been given for other crisis resources to help her in her situation. If my husband were to make himself continually available, he only would have been enabling patterns that were not wise.
As ministers of God there are times when we have to allow people to learn from their choices. It doesn’t mean we stop talking to them, of course; Jesus still fed His disciples and the crowds that followed Him even though they didn’t totally get Who He was and some were just coming to have their bellies filled. But there are times when our patience has to have boundaries.
We need to protect ourselves because we are humans with limits, not the false saviours we sometimes make ourselves out to be. And we need to have boundaries because God’s patience is bound by His righteousness and wrath, too. Without it, His mercy would have no “teeth”. God’s righteousness must be held in tandem to His patience and longsuffering.
When we exercise boundaries with others in our ministry we demonstrate this balance. We can only be free from the problems of our own making by owning our sin, repenting, and receiving God’s forgiveness. In setting boundaries with our people we teach them that they, too, must be responsible for their own actions if they want God’s peace.
Thoughts that summarize this concept for me come from Jim Elliot, one of the five famous missionaries killed by the Ecuadorian tribal peoples in 1956.
I love how he juxtaposes the forbearance and righteousness of God in this journal writing from November 1949. It is recorded by his wife Elisabeth Elliot in her biography of her husband’s life Shadow of the Almighty:
Jim writes, God’s “tolerance and love for his creatures is such that, having spoken in Christ, in conscience, in code of law, He waits for them to leave off their bawling and turn for a moment to listen to the still, small voice of the spirit. Now, after so long a time of restrained voice, bearing in Almighty meekness the blasphemies of His self-destroying creatures, now—how shall break upon the ears, consciences, hearts and minds of reprobate man the voice of one so long silent?
“…O God, what shall be the first tone of that voice on earth? And what their effect? Wonder and fear, denizens of dust, for the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a battle cry, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet blast of God Himself, made more terrible, if that could be, by the longsuffering of His silence” (p. 111).
At times being patient with our people may require a silence like that of God that will hopefully lead to repentance and true dependence on Him for everything in their lives. After all, God treats us the same way, and aren’t we glad He does?
I sure am. I’m also glad that I can show up on His doorstep anytime I need help in being patient with the sheep to which we have been entrusted.
(NOTE: Often, those congregants who need repeated help and are frequently in crisis situations have need of medical and professional help and should thus be directed to resources for these needs. It is wise on our part to direct our people to the resources available for all aspects of physical and mental help as we seek to care for their spiritual needs as well.)
(Quote taken from an entry from Jim’s journal on November 29, 1949, quoted in “Shadow of the Almighty: The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot” by Harper Collins, New York, 1958, p. 111).