So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now;
rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen.
For the things we see now will soon be gone,
but the things we cannot see will last forever.
2 Corinthians 4:18

Read: Luke 16:19-31, 2 Corinthians 4:1-4, 13-18
Pilgrim’s Progress Stage 2 Part 8

Relate: The Interpreter takes Christian to another room, where two small children named Passion and Patience are sitting. Passion is restless and discontent. He wants his stuff now, today, immediately, all of it. Patience sits quietly, willing to wait. A bag of treasure is brought in and given to Passion, who immediately tears it open, revels in it, and, very quickly, has used it all up, leaving himself with a pile of junk. Patience, still waiting, still quiet, has nothing to show yet. The lesson could not be more plainly drawn. Christian understands it before the Interpreter has to explain it.

Bunyan doesn’t make Passion a monster. Passion is not evil. He is impatient. This is a far more ordinary failing, and a far more recognizable one. He wants what is coming to him, and he wants it now. Nearly every day I am eating a hot sandwich for lunch. Some days I grill them. Other days I microwave them. Ten times out of ten, the sandwich is better when grilled. But too often I am just too impatient and lazy to do it. Why wait? Why defer? Why not seize what is available in the present moment rather than holding out for something better promised in the future? Passion’s logic is not irrational. It is just catastrophically shortsighted. Treasures quickly gained are just as quickly lost (Pr 13:11). They always run out. Then the person who spent everything on present pleasure has nothing left for the long road.

React: Patience is one of those virtues it is hard to love. I’ve heard others joke, and have repeated it myself, that we should never pray for patience. Why? Because God develops patience in us by testing our faith. And we go through enough trials as it is. Why pray for more? But Bunyan is clear, Patience is a noble virtue. Good things coming to those who wait is not just a cliche. It is an eternal truth. Please hear me, this is not prosperity theology in reverse. I am not saying that Christians who avoid material pleasures now will receive material abundance in heaven. This is saying something more radical. The things we are waiting for are so genuinely, substantively better than what Passion grabbed for that the comparison is almost unfair. The crown is real. The glory is real. And Patience, still sitting quietly in that room, will wear it someday while Passion stands in rags and stares at an empty bag.

Respond:

Dear God,
First and foremost, You are my reward. You are the treasure, the glory, that I can not yet fully and clearly see. And because I can only glimpse as through a blurry window, I find myself distracted by the cheap toys that are available here and now. I know they will not last. I know they are cheap and useless, but even still the pull for the house, the car, the clothes, the credit, the likes, turns my eyes too often from You. I find myself doomscrolling through the temporary pleasures of life even as I know that Your presence is available… if only I wait. Help me to wait.
Amen