How Do We Stay for the Best Things?

Christian arrives at the house of Interpreter expecting to see excellent things. Interpreter leads Christian to observe seven different rooms, each with a scene that illustrates spiritual reality.  The third room, one of my favorites, is a small room where two small children sit side by side, one named Passion, the other Patience. 

Passion is the restless one. He is discontent, huffing and squirming. Patience keeps quiet. Bunyan leads us to imagine him sitting neatly in the chair, hands folded in his lap. The boys’ nanny had told them they had to wait for the best things. The “best things” were coming to them, but they wouldn’t arrive until early the next year. Passion can’t stand this, though. He wants it all now. 

Then Christian sees someone walk into the room and dump a bag of treasure at his feet. Passion immediately jumps from his chair and scoops up the goodies. Grinning, he looks over at Patience, still sitting quietly, and he laughs at him to scorn.

Christian continues to watch. 

He sees that Passion “quickly lavishes all away” until he “had presently nothing left him but rags.” Interpreter explains:

These two lads are figures: Passion, of the men of this world; and Patience, of the men of that which is to come; for as here thou seest, Passion will have all now this year, that is to say, in this world; so are the men of this world, they must have all their good things now, they cannot stay till next year, that is until the next world, for their portion of good. . . . But as thou sawest that he had quickly lavished all away, and had presently left him nothing but rags; so will it be with all such men at the end of this world.

Christian replies,

Now I see that Patience has the best wisdom, and that upon many accounts. First, because he stays for the best things. Second, and also because he will have the glory of his, when the other has nothing but rags. …

Going Deeper

Christian gets the image. He recites the lesson back to Interpreter: Don’t covet things that are now, but wait for things to come.

And Interpreter says, Yep, you’ve got it. And at that moment, the scene could end. Message received. Lesson learned.

But instead of ending it there, Bunyan gives us a little more: He has Interpreter explain to us why this truth is so hard to apply. 

As readers, we’ve also seen the vivid image of Passion and Patience. With Christian, we’ve also understood how foolish Passion was, and we’re convinced that it is the best wisdom to stay for the best things — which are also the “last things that give place to nothing.” That’s what we want!

But …  if we’re honest, it’s hard to live that way. How often do we willingly choose to deny ourselves pleasure or comfort for the sake of spiritual reward? Why is that so hard?

Interpreter explains it’s because “things present” (worldly pleasures) and our “fleshly appetite” are near neighbors. They fall into sudden amity (friendship). But the “things to come” (heavenly pleasures) and our “fleshly appetite” are strangers. There’s a great distance between them. In other words, Interpreter says that when these things are in competition (worldly pleasure/sin versus heavenly pleasure/holiness), the one that wins is the one that we perceive to be most real.

Seeing Beyond the Moment

Years ago, I was in a counseling meeting with a friend who had been falling into a besetting sin. It was a situation where temptation was obvious. There was always a fork in the road, and this friend was constantly choosing the wrong way. And so I appealed to Bunyan’s logic in this scene and said, basically, Don’t sin because the joy of Jesus is better. 

And he replied, No, actually it’s not. 

At the moment, he said, when he stood at the fork in the road, it was a choice between indulgence and denial, and denial does not, in any immediate way, shape, or form appear better in the moment. He was basically saying that Passion, when he tore into that bag of treasure and was laughing Patience to scorn, was doing what was obviously more pleasurable at that moment.

That is true. Indulgence in the moment is more pleasurable than self-denial — which is why we must see beyond the moment. We must learn to choose what we want most over what we want now.

That’s Bunyan’s whole point in this scene. Stay for the best things, the lasting things. And this is why, in the Christian life, we need Holy Spirit-empowered imaginations. 

The apostle Paul writes in Titus 2, verse 11, 

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Paul says we do renounce — we deny — things in this present age (ungodliness and worldly passions). But that denial here is part of the waiting and hoping in what is to come, the appearing of Jesus. It’s staying for the best things. The grace of God, led by the Spirit of God, trains us in this.

We need our hope in future, better, lasting joy to become more real to us than the fleeting pleasures offered now.

Bunyan’s illustration of Passion and Patience can help us with that.

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