OK, I need more Patience… but with people?

Patience is the ability to respond to people’s incompetence or unique differences in a good-natured way. It will protect me  from offense and bitterness, and will allow God to work in my life. I certainly need patience in my life

What causes me to be impatient?


I fear this person is taking advantage of me. I’m in a hurry and my time is valuable. My pride and ego get in the way. I’m more important. Look how bad they are. I’m better. I know best. I lack knowledge or understanding of their situations, circumstances or culture. Look how many reasons I use for justifying my anxious, impulsive, aggressive, and self-centered attitudes and actions.

As we deal with people, we need patience that results in correct responses. Galatians mentions patience as one of the fruits of the Spirit and different translations use words like longsuffering, even tempered and forbearing to help us understand this spirit-led characteristic. Synonyms include tolerance, forgiving and merciful.

How can we be patient without being forbearing, tolerant, merciful and forgiving? We can’t. We must combine these ideas of forbearance, tolerance, mercy and forgiveness with the essence of Christianity, love. Then we will see the overt manifestation of patience in our relationships. 1 Corinthians 13 reminds us that love is patient and kind.

And how does patience manifest itself?

Patience is not envious or boastful; it isn’t arrogant or rude. Patience doesn’t insist on it’s own way; it isn’t irritable or resentful.

Patience bears and endures all things; believes all things and places confidence in others; it joyfully waits with confident, expectation and hope; and it calmly, suffers unfair treatment. Patience exercised with Faith, hope and love is never powerless or without effect. [Based on ESV translation of 1 Corinthians 13:4-8]


Sounds like love. And that’s why patience never fails.


Remember continue your work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God our Father.  1 Thessalonians 1:3

What provokes impatience towards other in your life? What do you do to respond patiently to these people? Leave your comments.


Read about patience when things seem out of control here: Patience in Life's Circumstances

Patience, Again?

How often have you heard the following statements?

I prayed, “LORD, give me patience,” and He sent me tribulation.

“You know the Bible says ‘tribulation works patience.’ I guess if you don’t want problems and trials you just better not pray for patience.”

“Patience is a virtue, brother. You’ve got to wait. You know, God’s doing something in your life.”

Although parts of these thoughts may not be 100% off base, I do think they represent a common misapplication of the ideas in Romans and James. This way of thinking creates fear in us; a fear that God will cause us to have many trials, tribulations and difficulties so we will learn to be patient.

I believe the opposite is true. Instead of being afraid to ask God for help, we must believe He strengthens us as we wait patiently. We must trust Him in the difficult times to change our attitude and our response to these moments when answers seem to be evasive or when it seems as though God does not answer.
Our attitude always affects the outcome. Patience is a good-natured response to delays and incompetence*. Let us consider four possible characteristics of metals and their relationship to our attitudes during the trials of life.

• Malleable is the capability of being shaped by pressure; adaptable*
  
• Ductile is the characteristic of being stretched thin or undergoing change of form without breaking *
  
• Flexible is the potential of bending without breaking*
  
• Resilient is the ability of springing back or returning to the original form of position after being bent *

When we impatiently demand our own way, we be easily offended, hard and brittle and therefore easily damaged.
If we patiently endure with hope and faith, we’ll be malleable, ductile, flexible and resilient. We will be moldable and God will use the situation to our advantage. We will “spring back” from trials even stronger than before.


Lord, I need to respond to life’s delays and people’s incompetence in a good-natured way. Help me deal with restlessness and annoyance in my life. Holy Spirit, give me patience.

As we pray to our God and Father about you, we think of your faithful work, your loving deeds, and the enduring [patient, unwavering] hope you have because of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thessalonians 1:3  NLT

Check out the next blog on patience: OK, I need more patience... but with people?

*The definitions used are paraphrases of the meanings given in Dictionary! and Dictionary.com applications for the iPhone and iTouch.

The Glory

This morning they fumigated our house for mosquitoes with an awesome fog machine.  Thirty minutes later the fog was still there.

Holy Spirit, fumigate my life with the fog of the glory and presence of God, and may the fog linger for a long, long time.

Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Exodus 40:34-35 English Standard Version

And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud filled the house of the LORD, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD. 1 Kings 8:10-11  English Standard Version

Meditation

July 6, I posted this thought on Facebook.

"Meditation has more to do with filling yourself with His thoughts [God’s] than it does emptying yourself of yours."

I know it’s not an original idea, but it sure touched a need out there. For what it's worth, here are some other thoughts on meditation. These thoughts didn’t necessarily originate with me either, but with the exception of the Biblical references I don’t know who to give credit to.

- be still and know that I am God, Ps. 4:4; 46:10
- God spoke in a still small voice, 1 Kings 19:12
- Renew our minds with the word of God, Rom 12:2
- meditate [to chew the cud like a cow] day and night on the Word, Joshua 1:8; Ps 1:2

I meditate, sitting quiet and just being, just being quiet before him. Like Mary sat at the feet of Jesus, I sit listening for Him to speak. My objective is not to empty myself, but to quiet myself. I think there is a difference. I quiet myself and fill myself with God's thoughts. Maybe I read one verse or two and just think on them. Maybe I'm listening to music and thinking about God. Maybe I'm not doing anything but sitting there and enjoying the presence of God that is with me. The neat thing is that as I quiet myself and fill myself with God's thoughts that come from His Word, He fills me with more of Himself. As I let Him fill me and as I obey Him, the undesirable in me is PUSHED out. The more full of God I am, the less full I am of myself.

There is a video teaching titled Be Still and Know that I Am God that deals with meditation and contemplative prayer. It's very good and includes comments and thoughts from Dr. Henry Cloud, Richard Foster, Max Lucado and Beth Moore.

The Ocean of Eternity

Eternity is difficult to understand, but consider what Maricio Maeterlinck said, "Eternity is the ocean; time is the wave."

Life we live here in the earth is just a wave of time in the rest of the ocean of eternity. We must live for eternity, not passing pleasure.

Our Heavenly father made the temporary and natural. Jesus lived here in the earth so we, his earthly creation, could be with Him for eternity. Placing our faith in the eternal work of Christ in the cross, we choose to serve God and receive His eternal life. We determine our eternity.

Only by pursuing God can we take advantage of our wave of life and enjoy God's ocean of eternity.

Secure your Eternity with God

Eternity, infinite duration... has been for millenniums the theme of philosophers, theologians and mystics. There is something in man that wants to know what existed before his birth and what will happen after his death. Why? Because God made man according to his image and likeness, He made man with eternity in his soul.

Our Eternal Father wants to enjoy in all his existence a perfect and permanent relation with mankind, ... blessing the apex of creation He had made. For this reason, when the first couple left God, the LORD decided to not leave them eternally separated from Him. When humanity rebelled, God demonstrated His great love by sending Jesus Christ to die for all humanity on the cross.

Put your trust in Jesus Christ. Secure your eternity with God.

Eternity in Our Souls

In the beginning Jesus Christ was; and he who is Jesus Christ was with God and was God. He was with God from the beginning. Through him, God made all things; nothing that exists was made without him. Jesus was life and this life was the light of all humanity.

God created the heavens and the earth and said: let's make mankind in our image and according to our being... So the LORD formed man from the earth and breathed in his nose the breath of life; and mankind became a living being.

God made mankind according to his image and being; he made mankind with eternity in his soul so he could live forever.