karma

“The Lord is slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression;” Numbers 14:18

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9

When my youngest daughter, now 28, was a toddler I found myself praying the same prayer every day throughout the day. “Lord, give me patience!” At times I prayed in exasperation but often I prayed through tears. She is a lovely young woman, now with toddlers of her own; a woman full of love for the Lord.

As a child, however, she was relentlessly busy—emptying cupboards, climbing counters to reach what I had forbidden, and leaving toys in my path. Rarely idle and endlessly creative, she moved with a confidence that suggested my “no” simply meant I hadn’t yet understood her reasoning.

A friend who was never going to have children once told me to not break her spirit. Teachers loved her wit and creativity even in Kindergarten. I responded to them, “You don’t have to live with her.” She always wanted more – more things, more activities, more of me, more, more, more. I loved and love her dearly but I was at my own wit’s end most days when she was little.

More Than Just Patience

One Sunday our pastor at the time spoke the words I so desperately needed. “If you keep asking for the same thing from God over and over and you aren’t seeing any fruit, then maybe it’s time to ask for something different.” In that moment I realized I wasn’t praying wrong – I was praying too narrowly. I had been fixated on patience as if it were something God handed out in isolation, rather than part of a much richer work He was doing in me.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23

You find “patience” nestled right in the middle of the fruits of the Spirit. But surrounding it are so many other good gifts He provides. I started asking for God to help me release those other aspects of the Holy Spirit. I needed to slow down, be kind, have joy in what He had blessed me. Instead of demanding, I started co-working with my daughter. I sat calmly with her talking about trust and my desire for her safety. Patience came to me through other gifts.

His Patience Is His Mercy

This struggle with patience didn’t just shape my parenting—it reshaped how I see justice, mercy, and grace. We should all seek to be patient and merciful to others as God has so graciously done for us throughout our years. It’s why Christians must push back against the concept of “karma.” You notice most people who invoke the idea do so in glee of someone else’s suffering? And yet we all deserve some sort of punishment, probably every day. For things we said, thought or did or for those things we didn’t.

“Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.” Isaiah 30:18

The LORD has been patient with this world for millennium. He promised never to flood the earth again with His wrath against sin and evil. Instead, He sent prophets armed with His Word to warn people and to plead with people to trust in Him and Him only. He even sent His son to take our punishment we so rightly deserve.

“But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.“ 1 Timothy 1:16

Friend, His patience is a perfect gift for us imperfect people. We should never say we can’t come to Him because of our failures. He is waiting for us to seek Him so He can lavish us with forgiveness. He doesn’t grow weary in His waiting. However, we are promised that one day the waiting period will be over. We will all face His eternal justice.

When non-believers question, “Where is your God?” We can faithfully answer that He is in the midst of us, patiently waiting for them to repent. For now, we thank Him for the patience He shows us and the unbelievers we love. We can thank Him too for the patience He has gifted us through the Holy Spirit.

As for me and my daughter I can be so thankful for how patient He has been to both of us. Thankful for how much He has loved us. He has blessed us with a beautiful relationship filled with joy.

“But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” Psalm 86:15

Lessons from Cherith

He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Luke 24:38

During the time in my own land of Cherith, a place where I was separated from my home, my regular way of life and exposed to great sadness, I so needed to rely on the vast promises of God. Yet each day I battled the “why” of it all. Why didn’t the cancer doctors see and recognize the increased cancer markers in my beloved mother-in-law’s blood tests? Why did each visit to the emergency room end without answers? But more importantly, why would this woman, a shining light for God, an inspiring gift to everyone around her, a woman, as her pastor reflected at her funeral with a beautiful aura surrounding her, be stricken with cancer and taken so soon? Why God, oh why?

How often have we lamented that why question in our lives? Why are we suffering financially? Why is my child rebelling? Why is my marriage on the rocks? Why did I suffer that abuse? It seems as Christians we are expected to answer those questions. I believe many of us avoid speaking the Gospel to our friends, family and neighbors out of fear of being asked those why’s of life. In fact, as a young college student who was approached one day on my campus by two religious folks, I too asked the big why – why is there suffering? You see I believed in God but didn’t really know anything about Him. Unfortunately, neither did these two young proselytizers.

I recently heard the statement: “If we view the world as a Christian, it all makes sense.” On the surface that’s a real head scratcher since this world seems so upside down especially now. Broken families, broken lives, so much pain and death abound. But take a step back, way back to Genesis 3.

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. ¹⁸It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. Genesis 3:17-18

And that’s just a taste of what man’s rebellion wrought. Creation is currently at odds with God. And just as cells divide and life moves without our intervention, our world around us is no longer under our full dominion. So yes, there’s floods and fire and famine and cancer. And it has absolutely nothing to do with whether we are a good person or not. In addition to this result of The Fall, we became separated from God, always seemingly looking for ways to buck His system. And we face the consequences for our actions, both individually and collectively.

Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness.’” ²Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.”  Exodus 5:1-2

And we know how well that went for Pharoah. But what was Moses’ first reaction after Pharoah knuckled down and made the Israelites work harder? “Why?” He asked God why did He have to make things worse and why did Moses have to be the brunt of everything? From a Christian point of view, we should say, “There’s consequences in this world when anyone chooses to not submit – whether you choose to believe in God or not.” This is not “Karma,” it’s simply a cause and effect of acting outside God’s desires for us.

And while we may cry out, “why?!” in the moment whether in situations of our own making or of those in which we have no power, we need to remember the “what.” What is God doing in me or even in the world? What is God expecting of me as a believer? What is the promise I can hold on to? The early Israelites had a decent excuse. They didn’t know God as well as we do now. They didn’t have all the stories of how He has rescued and protected His people. They didn’t have Jesus’ brother James telling them there will be trials and in them they need to seek the lessons of God. They didn’t have Jesus come to earth and die for their sins. They didn’t have the Book of Revelation. But we do.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ¹⁷For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.¹⁸So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

So, each day as I sat beside Bev’s bed as her body succumbed not to cancer but to an infection, I battled the “why” demon. I wanted someone punished. I wanted someone to suffer like I was now suffering. Then I heard a whisper, “She gets to come home to me. And you need to see what I am teaching you.”

You see even in her suffering, on her death bed, this Christian called Bev was a conduit for Jesus. A teacher and a comforter. I finally realized it didn’t matter the “why.” For one, there really were no answers that fully satisfied. At times like that we just need to submit to God’s sovereignty and say, “I don’t know but He does.” The only real answers that I continued to come back to were the “what.”

What did I truly believe about God? And what was He trying to teach me?

Christian Friend, if you earnestly believe the Bible, believe that God is the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth and all it’s inhabitants, if you believe He is sovereign and He sent His Son to die for our sins, if you believe that there is a place greater than Eden awaiting us then you could understand why Bev wasn’t worried. Why she could make us all laugh at her darkest hour. Why, in the middle of a conversation she looked over my shoulder, waved and with a child-like voice exclaimed in joy, “Hi Jesus!”

²My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? John 14:2

You see I didn’t need to know the answers to my worldly questions and I definitely didn’t need retribution. I needed to remember that Jesus hates death because it’s a sign of our broken world. And He is right now preparing a room more beautiful than I can imagine for even me. When He comes back we will all be raised up to live forever in a beautiful place that has no suffering, no death, no pain, no war, no hate, no fear. And that is just what I needed to learn.

Are you asking “why” in your difficult time when you should be asking “what?”
What is the Lord teaching or asking you right now?

Tag: karma

Perfect Patience for Imperfect People

From Why? to What?