"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." Galatians 5:22-23 I like these verses. A lot. I don't know if they exhaust the list of everything that I want to be, but it covers a great deal of it.
Today...well, I'm thinking about patience. About what it means. About how to let it grow in me.
I'm also thinking a lot about the old King James term for patience--"longsuffering." Nobody really uses the word anymore, but it does seem to convey what being patient really feels like at times.
Us? Well, we want things right now. We want things right away. In our world of high speed Internet and instant access and 24 hour grocery stores patience seems like a bygone relic of the old days. And when we can't have whatever it is we seem to think we want at the instant we want it, we get frustrated.
How pale much of our modern impatience must seem compared to the real patience of which Paul writes--a long suffering in this life. Sure, we think we suffer now with our sometimes insignificant concerns. And they do bother us.
But then something comes along that demands real patience and we suddenly know what it's all about.
How to get this patience with which we will must suffer long? Not from our own power, I can tell you that. The kind of patience Paul writes about--like the kind of love, peace, and joy--are only achievable in the Spirit. As gifts from God.
As with so many things, this means giving up trying to work things out in your own power and letting God take care of them in His time. It's above all else an act of faith. An act of trust.
As with so many things, this means giving up trying to work things out in your own power and letting God take care of them in His time. It's above all else an act of faith. An act of trust.
Though it seems far too simple, I guess we just have to wait for Him.
2 comments:
As commonly used, it seems to me that "patience" seems to connote a knowledge that it'll all work out the way we want it to, in time. Like waiting for the cup of coffee to heat in the microwave...[sigh...another thirty seconds...]
I agree with you: The Patience that really means something is being able to take a deep breath and wait, knowing neither when resolution will arrive, nor what that resolution will mean to our lives.
And that kind of patience is, indeed, faith...that whatever happens, God will take care of us in whatever way He feels we need to be taken care of.
BTW, if you're talking about the tropical fruit, it's spelled "pineapple."
I'm gonna have to fix that spelling! Thanks for the thoughts.
Post a Comment