Tag: patience

How Is Patience a Wonderful Demonstration of Love?

They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. (Isaiah 40:30) Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord. (Psalm 27:14) Love is patient; love is kind (I Corinthians 13:4 NIV)

So, often in our Christian walk, God bids us to wait upon Him. There are promises throughout scripture for strength, victory, peace and even joy as we learn to wait upon God in the midst of any circumstance. There was a time that I would have said, “God, please let me just skip this lesson on patience. It is not one that I am going to ever learn, so can we move on to something else?” Yet, God knew that this was a lesson which is vital to both my faith and my ability to love Him as I should. Patience while waiting is both an act of faith and an act of love toward God.

As I wrote in the last post, I arrived into Columbia with great anticipation of all that God was going to do. He had moved rapidly in preparing my move. Mountains were flattened and laid at my feet. After I arrived, there was the bitterest cold winter with snow fall after snow fall. Each day I would carefully, cautiously make my way safely to work in my car not made for snow. The short sale on my house in Florida had come to a standstill. The applications for a second job only ended in closed doors. For the first time in all of my career, I was being turned down for a job. Financially it was tough on a part time job. Certainly God knew this. So, I opted to have no cable, kept my house at the bare minimum of heating while wearing layers of clothes to keep warm, and did everything I could to survive financially. At the end of each month I rejoiced that I made it. I never failed to tithe and God would stretch the remainder of the money.

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Why Does True Love Demand A Humble, Forgiving Heart?

Accept life with humility and patience, making allowances for each other because you love Ephesians 4:2 (PHILLIPS)

Having seen the glimpse of what God was doing in the heart of Pete should have given me all the hope I could ever need to patiently believe. It should have; but, how quickly our human hearts see a flickering light and want immediately to see the full beam of glorious light. Patience was always that lesson that I asked God if we could just skip and move on to something else. Yet, it was the one God truly wanted me to learn. After all, if I truly trust God; patience would be easy. After all, patience is merely the question of “How much do I really trust God’s goodness toward me?”

Humble love

 

So, it was that after Pete declared his discovery that the Bible was true; he did not again speak of God or salvation. He continued with his highs and lows. Actually, the moments of happiness were being engulfed by the days of deep depression. More and more Pete wanted to retreat into a world of sleep using drugs to stay there. There were those moments of anger and harshness that would come that made me welcome his retreat back into sleep. The violence would come as I tried to hide the drugs from him or to ration them to help him come clean again. I pleaded with his family to come and sit watch with him as he went through withdrawal; yet, one by one they would leave as soon as Pete became verbally abusive. Again, I would be left alone to try. So, I would try each new day to step by step bring him off.

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4 Reasons God Waits to Display His Glory

The journey had seemed so long and I was tired. Oh, yes; throughout the journey I had watched the mighty hand of God guide my every step. I had watched His grace as it had shown forth in forgiveness on me His child. I had learned of the depth of His love for me. He was my guiding light throughout the struggles—even during the abusive relationships. God had displayed His majesty as He carried me through the cancer and then the ulcerative colitis. So, when they found the mass on the pancreas there was a part of me that sighed a prayer, “Lord, are you taking me home? I am tired. It has been a long journey. I just want to be with you.” That was 2002. So, obviously; God had a different plan to display His Glory to me here on earth. He knew I still needed to learn that He was my joy, my hope, and my everlasting love here. He knew my prayer to go home and leave this world was a cry to leave the pain because I didn’t know how to bask in His joy, love, and hope here. He knew that for me to fully experience heaven with Him one day, I needed to realize how majestic He really is and I needed to learn that here first. I needed my eyes to learn to see Glory first. Steadily, patiently, slowly He has continued His work of transforming my heart so I might see His Glory and His Majesty with greater clarity.

All too often, we are very impatient in our desire to have our prayers answered. We, too often, become discouraged while waiting for God to answer or to fulfill a promise which we may be clinging to with all our heart.

awed by gloryoriginal photo used by permission of Jim Peregoy

Yet, God knows when our heart is ready to see His Glory in the miracle before us; so, He waits. He knows when we will know that without Him there is no hope left—so we might feel the magical awe of watching Him intervene for us. When, all the hope of our own efforts is gone; He can display His might in such a manner that we will give Him all the Glory and hence we will feel the overwhelming joy of watching His love bestowed on us.

Remember the story of Lazarus, Mary and Martha?

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