Day 278: Patience with Everyone

1 Thessalonians 5:14

Brothers and sisters, we urge you to warn those who are lazy. Encourage those who are timid. Take tender care of those who are weak. Be patient with everyone.

I want to discuss patience today. Patience with our brothers and sisters in Christ, our peers. Sometimes it’s very hard to maintain our patience with God, and even harder to maintain it with everyone else. I think sometimes we are so quick to get impatient with our neighbor that we forget how much patience it took from others to get us where we are. When talking about dealing with our peers we must realize that at some point in our lives we were in their shoes, or maybe we are in there shoes. Sometimes all people need is for us to be patient with them. I know it’s easy to get frustrated with a lazy person who seems to not want to do anything. But we can all point out a time in our lives when we were uninspired, not motivated, or just as lazy as the next person and someone was patient with us. I know we’ve all met people who are timid and shy, (I was one of those people). When we see this in people we have to take the time to encourage them. It’s easy to tell them that they shouldn’t be shy, but that’s not really helping. Encourage them, work with them, be patient with them. Next the scripture tells us to take care of those who  are weak. Sometimes we have to be each other’s strength. Meaning we have to take care of someone else. We have to put ourselves aside in order to make sure that someone else is taken care of. And we must do it in good spirit. I point out all of these in the scripture because I believe that this is one of the ways in which God calls us to love one another.  

This is how we are to love our neighbors. Patience is one of the fruits of the spirit, and many times we translate that to only mean having patience when it comes to waiting on God. Yes, that is part of it but we have to take it a bit further and apply it in how we treat people in our everyday lives. Sometimes we are so quick to run out of patience with one another, and if we learned self-control there would be a lot more peace in the world. We are so quick to get angry and flip out when things don’t go our way, or things are not in the timing they planned. This is the human condition, everything is moving so fast around us and we have everything at our fingertips, we have forgotten how to be patient. We’ve forgotten what it is like to wait for something or someone. (With apps like Tindr we don’t even have to wait for the right person anymore, we can swipe to discover what it is we want and fit us, but that’s another subject for another day.)  In these moments it is important to remember the patience of God. He is the most patient. This is the man who has given us chance after chance, after chance, I could go on forever. Yet He never gave up on us. Even when we didn’t get it right. Even when it took us longer to submit to Him than He wanted. Even when we walked away and came back a million times. He never gave up on us. In fact He sent His son to die for us. God did all of this for us, yet we give up on people after two tries.

If we took the time to encourage and take care of one another, being patient would not be an issue. But the problem with that is taking time for someone else is taking time away from self. When we think about it,  impatience is a pretty selfish trait. It’s all about us, and our timing, and what we want, and the people we decide we have no patience for. It’s all about us, making our lives “easier”. The truth is, sometimes our lives will have to be hard, in order to benefit someone else. Jesus is a prime example. Sometimes patience means giving ourselves up for the sake of someone else.

All this to say be patient with people. Love one another. When we truly love our neighbor as the bible says we will have less of a problem being patient with our peers. Encourage one another, lift each other up, and warn one another in love.

Reflection

1. Are you a hot tempered person? Do you lose your patience quick?
2. Has has God’s patience with us translated to how patient we are with our peers?
3. Do you believe that there is a difference between waiting and being patient? If so what is it?

Prayer Time

Take the time to discuss what we talked about today. Have a conversation with God about patience, as Him to teach you patience.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 279!