Patience

Patience 

A few years ago I went outside to feed our chickens, and one of our cats decided to join me. As I poured the chicken feed into the feeders, a small mouse ran out and hid under the chicken’s nesting boxes. Immediately my cat ran over to where the mouse was hiding, but he couldn’t reach it. With a laugh I left my cat there and went to go and do other chores.

About an hour later I went out to gather any fresh eggs, when I noticed that my cat was still there, staring intently at the place the mouse was hiding. He hadn’t moved in over an hour! What he displayed was patience, and eventually his patience was rewarded when the mouse (unsuccessfully) tried to make an escape.

That is what patience means. Willing to wait if necessary and not losing one’s temper while waiting. It also means to be constant in pursuit or exertion; persevering; calmly diligent; physically able to suffer or bear.

The normal desire for a person is to have something now, immediately. When someone looks at themselves in a mirror and says, “Ugh, I need to lose some weight,” they want all of it gone immediately. But anyone who has lost a lot of their body weight knows that it does not happen overnight. It takes time and patience to stick with the exercise and dieting to achieve their end goal. 

Patience is a quality that we need to possess as Christians. If someone does something evil or bad towards us, we need to take those sufferings patiently, just as our Lord did when He was crucified. If someone sins against us, we need to be filled with patience and mercy, just as our Lord is and has always been towards us. 

1 Thessalonians 5:14, “…be patient toward all men.”

In order to overcome temptations, we need patience. When we are tempted to do wrong, we need to resist that urge to give in to it, because it is through the resisting of temptation that we can overcome it. 

James 1:2-4  “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”

Parents need a great deal of patience, as young children have a habit of repeating things over and over. They like to hear songs over and over again, until it is practically burned into the parents mind. They also have a habit of “pushing their limit” by doing something repeatedly, even if they have been told to stop doing it. In order for a parent to endure this, they require a very important quality: patience. 

Even though many of us are technically “adults”, we too have a tendency to revert back to this kind of childish behavior of pushing our limits. We repeatedly do wrong things. We constantly fail and make mistakes, but Jesus shows us great mercy and patience by forgiving us when we come to Him for that forgiveness. We need to display that exact same patience to others when they wrong us. 

Luke 6:36  “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.”

Ask yourself, What are some things in which I need to show more patience? How can I show Christ’s love to others by being more merciful?

In Christ,

Andrew