Patience
Today’s fruit is Patience.
I used to be a good little patient person. Or maybe I was
just really good at stuffing frustrated feelings so far deep that I seemed like
the most forbearing of folks. But really I wasn’t.
Though Wikipedia gets it right sometimes, to say that
patience is “the capacity to accept or
tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset” is as
defeating as it is incorrect.
I don’t think
patience is emotionless.
And I’m not just
saying that to justify my frustration over the past few months in an area
requiring more patience than normal. A situation that has led to much weeping
and gnashing of teeth. It’s led to punching pillows and throwing pillows and
once I threw my car keys across the room (I started to throw my lamp, but a
brief moment of practicality changed that action quickly).
No, I think
Dictionary.com does a little better with the definition. It defines patience as
“steady perseverance;
even-tempered care; diligence.”
Perseverance is
listed in James as a quality that comes out of suffering. But I don’t think we
just learn to Persevere, like stoic faced martyrs of old who learned to suck it
up or grin and bear it.
I think patience
is seeing the big picture. It’s seeing the Hand that’s working, even if we
can’t see the work. It’s a fruit of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit living within
you, not one of those things that will come from reading enough scripture or
drinking enough patience juice.
The need for
patience is a gentle prod to look to the One who supplies it. We can’t get
patience by ourselves, at least not the persevering kind. At least not the kind
that lasts. We can’t get it without a relationship with a Jesus who wept in the
garden and cried out to His Heavenly Father, asking for another way.
We are allowed to
ask God for another way. We can be like David, who fasted and prayed and
groaned and wept and begged the Lord to spare his son. But on the day God said,
“No, this is the way I’ve chosen,” David got up off the ground, took a shower,
and said, “Okay.”
That’s patience.
It’s the ability to say, “Okay” in response to the answer that says, “Wait,
just wait.”
But sometimes
“Okay” is said with tears of frustration. But it’s so much better to have those
tears in the company of the Safe One who loves you than to put those tears in a
box, hiding them and nursing them in the darkness, away from His presence.
Because not only is
He powerful and dangerous. He’s also safe and comforting.
And He already knows.