CHELSEA BRIGGS
I once heard that a perfect appearance is not the same as a meaningful life, and the power of that thought has stuck with me ever since. What wrecked me about that statement wasn’t its profoundness, because it’s something I already knew, but rather the fact that so many of my thoughts and behaviors didn’t reflect that I believed it. Proverbs 14:4 says, “Without oxen a stable stays clean, but you need a strong ox for a large harvest.” I know we would like to think when given the choice, we would choose a harvest over a clean stable any day, but if you’re like me, you’ve probably let pride rear its ugly head more times than you care to admit. Imagine with me for just a minute that patience is the strong ox, and pride is the clean stable.
I have always known patience to be good and pride to be far from it. After all, the Bible calls patience love and pride something that God detests. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to spot the difference. It wasn’t until recently, though, that I realized they are truly opposing forces. Enough of one begins to cancel the other.
I’ve witnessed this to be true in my own life in simple instances, like when I allow my children to exercise independence in tasks that I usually handle for them. With five people living in our home, we frequently go through towels, but I cannot remember the last time I ever folded or put one away. I am happy to report that the towel management position now belongs to our amazing three little stooges. Since the job turnover, every time I open a towel cabinet, I am reminded that I obviously have WAY less pride than I used to, but I also know this is directly tied to me gaining an incredible amount of patience. Meanwhile, their responsibility and my time are simultaneously persevering.
Jesus knew better than anyone that perseverance is a patience matter, not a pride matter. Our salvation was never purchased through pretty circumstances or Jesus passing the cup of suffering like He naturally desired. No, in fact, we are reconciled with God because He traded His throne for a messy stable, His perfection for our imperfection, and endured the pain and punishment we deserved… while we were still sinners. If this is not the ultimate picture of patience, I don’t know what is. The precursor to the most meaningful harvest ever reaped was the utterance, “…nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” He knew what it took to get to the words, “It is finished.”
We all have dreams we’re reaching for and hoping to achieve in this new year, whether it be in our churches, our teams, or our families. The danger of beginnings for leaders is that we can tend to focus so much on a strong start that we haphazardly make a clean stable the goal instead of a large harvest. Ecclesiastes 7:8 tells us, “Finishing is better than starting. Patience is better than pride.” If we’re not careful, we’ll find ourselves exercising authority instead of faith and controlling people instead of progress.
One of our favorite family verses our kids love to sing is Matthew 6:33 (CEV), “But more than anything else, put God’s work first and do what He wants. Then the other things will be yours as well.” Culture teaches us that we persevere through mind over matter, but we only achieve what God wants by putting what matters to Him (a harvest) over what’s on our minds (clean stables).
Let’s get better at telling them apart. Pride issues pressure; patience issues purpose. Pride looks like a performance; patience looks like a pursuit. Pride cares about possessions; patience cares about priorities. Pride seeks perfectionism; patience seeks peace. Pride produces paralysis; patience produces power. Pride procrastinates; patience plans. Pride obtains problems; patience obtains promises.
A strong ox for a large harvest may cost us some clean stables, but the trade-off is far more costly.
***This article was originally published in the 2024 Destiny Magazine, Spring Edition.***
Chelsea has been married to Marcus Briggs for 14 years, and together they serve as lead pastors of Riverpark Church in Shreveport, Louisiana. She is passionate about being on mission from Sundays to soccer fields to supper at the table with their three children. Their dream as a family is to live authentically and show their community who Jesus is.
