Before you speak, listen. Before you write, think. Before you pray, forgive. Before you quit, try. I read each morning, well almost each morning, from a magazine that provides insights and commentary on whatever the selection of scripture was for that day. A couple days ago the magazine had the words that I wrote above. And to me, it all means patience. Listening, thinking, forgiving and trying all takes patience; patience with ourselves and patience with others.
Consider all the patience God shows us on a daily basis as we move through our lives. Jesus was the epitome of patience. Jesus spent three decades preparing for a ministry that lasted only about three years. Talk about patience and long-suffering. He knew his role from the beginning. I would imagine that he would have liked to get it over with earlier, but that was not God's plan. Jesus was laser focused on God's plan for his life and how different would our lives be if that was our laser focus.
Jesus did react with less than patience in one instance. In Matthew 21:12-13, Mark 11:15-16 and Luke 19:45-46, Jesus reacts to the temple being used as a marketplace. "Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 'It is written', he said to them, 'my house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.'" Matthew 21:12-13
The context that Jesus lives in was his love for God, his love for his disciples and his love for the world. When his love of his God was attacked by using the temple in a manner unworthy of a house of prayer and God's intent for the temple, he lost his patience. He lost his patience only when it truly went against all he believed and lived and all that God had planned for him. That humbles me as I think about all the times I lose my patience during the day. When we lose our patience or react to a situation from a motivation other than a love action, we need to check our motives in that situation. How does it look to the other person? Am I doing this because I love God and believe in his plan for my life? Ouch.
The other day I had become increasingly frustrated with Emma's ability to enter a space in the house and leave it, moments later, in a state of disarray. At one point I had asked her to look around her and pick up everything in this specific area where she had been doing a craft. A couple minutes later she plunked down on the couch and was watching TV. I walked near where she had picked up and there were a pair of scissors on the floor. I said to her in a very sarcastic tone, "Emma, um, where do the scissors go?". She answered, "In the drawer." I pointed to the scissors and gave her a very impatient expression, threw my hands up in the air and said, "Then put them there." Emma stood up and said in a very sarcastic tone and expression, "Okay!" and put the scissors away. I wanted to scream, "DO NOT talk to me that way!" I, however, had started the sarcastic exchange. How could I get angry at her reaction when that is what it was, a reaction, or mirror, to what she had just received from me. Ouch.
The context that I operated out of that day was not a love of God, a love of his people or a love of the world. It was my own created context where everything had to be in a certain place and where everyone listened to me the first time and did exactly what was told, to my standards. Ouch.
When we act in frustration, judgment, anger, or lack of patience to those we encounter we are operating out of a faulty context, and we are not considering the context they are operating from. They may have had a bad morning, may have been yelled at by their parents, may have done poorly on a test, may have gotten in a fight with their spouse. We cannot know why people do or react as they do, but we can control our own context.
God has unlimited patience with us. We can take our love for him and turn it into listening, thinking, forgiving, trying and acting in patience. We can breathe before we react and search for the core of our motivation, God's love for us and our love for him. Breathe first, love next.
I am so glad to have made it through a month of writing about patience. I am looking forward to moving on, but know that God will continue his work on my patience level, ouch...breathe.
By His Grace
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