I've heard patience described as the quintessential experience of faith. Faith is learning to wait on God in the midst of doubt.
I've heard patience described as the quintessential act of love and kindness, managing our irritations and our hurry to be attentive and gentle with each other.
I've heard patience described as the quintessential aspect of peace and non-violence as we refrain from using power to make things "work out right" right here and right now. Peace requires a patient, eschatological hope.
Patience, it seems, sits at the root of many, many things.
Things like faith, hope, and love.
--an unpublished post about the virtue of patience
I like the way this puts patience at the root of so much: faith, hope, love, kindness, trust in God, peace, non-violence. I've been learning two things about similar dynamics lately. I'm curious if you or others here would agree with my observations or have further perspective:
1. What works better is when I stop trying to control externals so that they'll go well so that, as a result, I can be calm or patient. Instead, I'm better off focusing on my responses and reactions to externals good and bad. (Likely obvious to others but very new and still challenging to me).
2. I always thought "patience" and "trusting God" would feel good: a dove, as it were, would come down on me from heaven, alight on my head more or less, and I would *feel* patient toward all. What I'm learning instead is that, at least for now, I may experience these "virtues" with a certain degree of pain - it hurts to bring my anger under control, it hurts to extend patience to others (depending on what they're doing), etc. Even when it's not painful, it is still work.
When I was a practicing believer, I used to pay lip service to the second idea above: "love is a decision, not just a feeling," etc., etc. Now that it's become vital that I actually live differently, whether as a believer or simply as a human, I realize I had no idea what I was talking about back then.
Happy Friday all.
Patience is the willingness to be inconvenienced. (Inconvenience is low on the contemporary list of "virtues".)
Patience is the Fruit of the Spirit. I am not patient but He surprises me with His patience with me and through me.
The amazing truth about patience, is that regardless of how much we grow in it, it always seems allusive. Every trial that creates patience feels as heavy and life threatening as the ones before it. Maybe it is one of those areas where our growth is something that we have to accept God's promise as being there without the promise of feeling it. God knows how far we have come more than we do, and we are used accordingly.
'in patience posess ye your souls.' Yuh I read that somewhere.
is patience the same as longsuffering?
i have found I am more likely to be patient on the fly if I pay attention to H.A.L.T. Am I Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired? If I am I have found i can do something immediately to increase my ability to be patient.
Somewhere along the way I forgot about that helpful acronym and the approach it recommends. Thanks for your reply and the great reminder.