Be Patient With the Weak

We conclude this week's discussion about patience in my series, Thriving in God's Garden. Next week, we will learn how to develop greater kindness for others as we study Galatians 5:22, known as the fruit of the Spirit. Learning to bear spiritual fruit helps us to thrive in a life that began with abuse.

Be patient with others who are weak.
If someone hands us a screaming infant, most of us have the patience to soothe the child to the best of our ability. Perhaps we check its diaper, try feeding it, burping it, cuddling it, or rocking it. Very few people would simply walk away from a tearful infant, because they know that such little beings are completely helpless and dependent on others for their care.

First Thessalonians 5:14 (NIV) reminds us of how important patience is. It reads, And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone.

It's not always easy to be patient with everyone.
Today, I sat through an 8-hour seminar with a woman who was heckling the speaker throughout the day. I kept thinking that if I were up front, I'd ask someone to escort the heckler from the room. In spite of the repeated taunts, the speaker gracefully asked the woman to be patient and wait until later in the day for the information she was seeking.

I talked to the presenter afterward and commended her for her patience. She smiled and said it wasn't easy to keep her cool. But she had reminded herself that it was Good Friday, and she wanted to remain spiritual about the whole situation.

She put herself into the heckler's shoes and tried to see things from her vantage point. Perhaps the heckler was anxious about something and couldn't hear a word that was being said without her fears first being addressed.

The speaker's response to this annoying seminar attendee was a beautiful portrayal of how we need to be patient with people who are difficult. Remembering that God's Word calls us to be patient with everyone, not just helpless infants, can help us in tough situations.

Not all adults are grown-ups.
Some adults may look grown-up, but many are still emotional or spiritual infants in aging bodies. We must do our best to model our behavior after the seminar speaker who saw the heckler as one might view a child demanding candy. Who knows? Maybe our patience with old infants may provide a way for them to learn how to be patient, too.

Today's Challenge
Is there someone in your life who drives you nuts? Do they challenge your patience? Try to see beyond the adult form and think about what the child within is looking for from you. Perhaps it will lead you to respond with greater patience.

Develop Patient Endurance

This week, we are learning about patience in my series, Thriving in God's Garden. Today, I would like to discuss how we can develop patience endurance when people challenge our beliefs.

We can expect challenges.
Some people believe that when they become Christians, God will take away all of their hardships. This is not true, and in fact, God may allow us to endure even greater challenges to help us grow in our faith.

Second Corinthians 1:6 (NIV) reads, This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus. What calls for patient endurance? The persecution that we will inevitably face as a result of our belief in God.

We don't have to live in a country where Christianity is forbidden to experience persecution. All we have to do is put our faith into action here in the United States to find ourselves on the receiving end of judgment from our family members, co-workers, and neighbors.

Take a stand on issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, and other controversial topics; and I can guarantee that someone will call you narrow-minded, ridiculously conservative, or politically incorrect.

How do we develop patient endurance?
All we have to do is look back at the Bible passage above for the answer to this question. Patient endurance develops when we keep God's commands and remain faithful to Jesus.

So if someone asks us to take a stand on a politically-charged question, we simply look into God's Word to see how we should respond. We make up our minds to do what Jesus would in a similar situation. Then, we stick to our guns, even if it makes us unpopular.

We took a stand.
The Bible tells us, We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. (2 Corinthians 6:3 NIV) This passage means that if we live an exemplary life, no one can discredit our faith or our God. This takes tremendous patience and endurance.

To illustrate this concept, Joe and I made a decision when we went into the ministry that we would not drink alcohol. We didn't ever want someone to see us in a restaurant having a glass of wine and judging us. At the same time, we didn't want to drink and encourage others to do the same who might have a problem with excessive alcohol consumption.

This decision has not always made us very popular with family members or friends. At times, it has been downright awkward. But while we were patiently enduring the few snide remarks we have received, we gained far more supportive words of encouragement from people who were like-minded.

So, take a stand on what you believe in. Then patiently endure whatever trials result. Even when it's tough to stick it out, hang in there. The blessings are well worth any temporary trials that we might endure.

Today's Challenge
Have you taken a stand on an issue that has made you unpopular? As abuse survivors, this can be really difficult, because we are frequently meek people pleasers who will do anything to keep the peace. With the help of God's Word, take a stand on something today. Then develop patient endurance by following God's commands and keeping your eyes on Jesus.

Developing Patience in Affliction

We are learning about patience this week as we continue with my series, Thriving in God's Garden. This study is based on Galatians 5:22, known as the fruit of the Spirit.

Be patient in affliction.
The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 12:12 (NIV), Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. We've already learned how to increase our joy, and we're going to look at faithfulness in a few weeks. For today, I'd like to focus on being patient during times of affliction.

As survivors of abuse or trauma, most of us have a pretty good idea what it means to be afflicted. Abuse and trauma leave us with anger, fear, lack of trust, poor self-esteem, guilt, thoughts of revenge, pride, hatred, and depression. So how are we supposed to be patient while dealing with these problems?

Affliction can help us to develop patience.
Several years ago, I suffered from an illness that caused complete paralysis of my left arm and leg. My arm began functioning again relatively quickly, but my leg took months.

Paralysis meant that I spent months on end, lying in bed at home by myself while Joe and the kids went off during the day to work and school. Staring at my bedroom walls nearly drove me insane. I finally discovered two things that helped.

First, God's Word helped me to focus on his promises for my future. Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV) was especially helpful: "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." I put all of my hope in this promise for a better future.

Second, creating a new purpose for myself made a big difference. I got a laptop and began writing short stories just to entertain myself.

One Sunday morning, a man I had never met approached me in my wheelchair to ask if he could pray for me. While he was wheeling me out of church after services to help me get in my car, he asked how I spent my time. When I told him I was a writer, he offered me a job on the spot as an editor for one of the medical journals that he published.

Don't dwell on the pain.
No matter what type of afflicton we are dealing with, we must trust that God has a better future for us. If we are patient and look to him for guidance, he will line up the right people at the right time so that doors open for us unexpectedly.

So, be patient if you're suffering through a hard time right now. God knows what plans he has for you. Read his promises and find something to occupy your mind until he brings about a change for the better.

Today's Challenge
If you're stuck in a difficult situation, find something productive to do that will take your mind off the pain. Follow your heart's desire in choosing a new activity, and God will do something good with it.

Patience Grows with Wisdom

We begin week four of our nine-week series, Thriving in God's Garden. This study is based on Galatians 5:22, which is commonly known as the fruit of the Spirit. Today, I would like to look at how wisdom affects our ability to develop patience.

Got wisdom?
When we develop wisdom and the maturity to use it to deal with life's challenges, we also develop patience. Proverbs 29:11 (NIV) tells us, A patient man has great understanding, but a quick-tempered man displays his folly.

Allow me to illustrate what this passage of Scripture means. We have a new puppy in our house, a toy poodle named Zibby. I have never owned a toy breed before, so I spent her first weeks reading everything I could find.

I discovered that while most dogs can be housebroken and left for a number of hours at home alone without accidents, toy dogs cannot. Their bladders are about the size of a kidney bean, and they rarely acquire the ability to wait for hours on end to go potty.

If I didn't learn this about my dog, I might have expectations for her housebreaking that would be unfair to her. But, since I have gained understanding about her, I am more patient with her. I don't yell at her if she has an accident, and I don't leave her alone for more than a few hours.

Strive for understanding in your relationships.
Proverbs 19:11 (NIV) reads, A man's wisdom gives him patience. In other words, we must apply ourselves to learning more if we want to become more patient people.

Just as I learned about my dog's development, we can all learn a little something about the people who live with us or in our neighborhoods. Studying child development may help us to understand our children's limitations or the phases our teens are struggling to overcome.

Reading or attending seminars about marriage can be very helpful in developing patience with our spouses. Every spouse has strengths and weaknesses, and we can learn to be more patient with them if we understand what their limitations are.

We may grow in wisdom and patience if we study a little bit about our neighbors who come from cultures which are different from our own. I have learned a great deal by reading about and meeting people from other countries. Taking the time to listen to them, in spite of the language barriers that we face, has helped me to understand them and patiently wait for them to express themselves.

Today's Challenge
Is there someone in your life who needs your understanding today? A child? A teen? A spouse? A neighbor? A coworker? Take some time to gain some wisdom about them, and watch your patience grow.

The Fruit of the Spirit

Today, we begin a new series, Thriving in God's Garden. This study is based on the fruit of the Spirit, as found in Galatians 5:22 (NIV):

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

In my previous series, Removing the Roadblocks to Forgiveness, we discovered that abuse or trauma can leave us feeling angry, fearful, mistrusting, guilty, vengeful, prideful, hateful, or depressed. It destroys our self-esteem. If we take away these things from our spirits, we must replace them with something better.

What better place to begin than learning how to grow the fruit of the Spirit in our own souls? Removing old, useless feelings and replacing them with positive thoughts and actions helps us to grow spiritually, emotionally, and socially. And I believe that when we are balanced in these three ways, our physical health improves, too.

Today's Challenge
Write Galatians 5:22 on something that you will be sure to see every day. I would like you to commit it to memory so that when you feel yourself slipping back into old patterns, you can use this verse to re-focus. Be creative with where you write it. When I decided to memorize it, I wrote it on a saw horse that I was using while building a garden project. Within a week, I had it memorized.

God Hates Sin

Today, we arrive at the tenth and final attribute of God as we continue with our series, Removing the Roadblocks to Forgiveness. Since God loves all that is good and right, it comes as no surprise that he hates everything that stands in opposition to his chacter.

God's opposition to evil is total and permanent.
The Bible reassures us that if we believe in Jesus, we will be rewarded with eternal life in heaven. But it also tells us that if we reject Jesus, we will experience God's wrath. John 3:36 (NIV) reads: Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him.

God's character does not allow him to turn a blind eye to evil. He must punish it, otherwise it would make a mockery of all that is good. If we understand this attribute of God, we can feel better as survivors of abuse, knowing that God opposes those who have hurt us. We are not alone in our suffering.

When we hate the injustice that has occurred in our lives, we are imitating God. He hates evil, injustice, and sin. Therefore, we no longer need to feel guilty about the rage we feel. It is natural if we are made in the likeness of God to become upset when someone sins against us.

Imagine what the world would be like if God didn't get all that upsest about child molesters hurting little children. Think about what life would look like if God either delighted in sin or was not troubled by it. I sure wouldn't want to worship that kind of God. He would be as warped as the child molesters and other criminals on our planet.

God is slow to act on his anger.
God delays the punishment that people deserve for the evil acts they commit, because he wants them to come to a point of repentance. Remember, we learned earlier that God is merciful, gracious, and patient. Psalm 103:8 (NIV) reads, The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. While God hates sin, he loves all people.

We must be patient with our enemies.
Like God, we know that it is part of our character to hate evil. But we must also remember that God still loves sinners, so we must do the same. Our enemies may not yet have come to a point of repenting for their actions. Therefore, it is up to us to remain patient while they work toward that point of change.

As at teacher, I frequently taught small children who couldn't seem to learn at the pace of the average kid. God has always blessed me with the ability to patiently work with people who are slow to pick up on new concepts.

I once had a student in kindergarten who could not grasp what we call 'sight words.' These simple words, such as and and the needed to be memorized in order to move on to more difficult reading tasks. Every other student had moved ahead to beginning readers, but this poor little boy couldn't get it.

One Monday morning, he came up to me as I was preparing to start our day. With confidence, he said, "Look what I can do." He opened a little book and read it perfectly from beginning to end.

I was flabbergasted and figured that someone at home must have been drilling him all weekend. I asked, "Who taught you how to read?"

Without hesitation, he smiled up at me and said, "You did."

That moment showed me that we never know how much of an impact we are having on someone. Even when our efforts seem to be fruitless, we never know what is going on in someone's heart or mind.

As I wait for my father to repent of his sins of molesting children and my mother to learn how to love as God does; I remember that little boy. I must be patient and kind to the people who have hurt me the most. Like my student, my parents may be the type of people who are slower to catch on to God's lessons for them.

I want to be there when someone asks the question of my parents, "Who taught you to love?" Hopefully, they'll give God the credit first and also mention that my kindness toward them helped along the way.

How do we find the patience to love slow learners?
I find it extremely difficult to love my parents. My mother, especially, is the type of person who pushes people away or turns on them when they try to express God's love to her. While my kindergarten student was eager to learn and please, my mother is more reluctant to do so.

I do not have the capacity to love either of my parents without God's help. Learning more about his character and how I am supposed to imitate him shows me what I must do. With ongoing prayer, I can tap into God's power to do the impossible. So can you.

Apply God's moral attributes to your own life so that you can forgive.
Over the past several weeks, we have looked at our own problems that have been caused by abuse or trauma: anger, fear, lack of trust, low self-esteem, guilt, revenge, pride, hatred, and depression. I call these the roadblocks to forgiveness, because as long as they remain in place, we cannot move forward.

Along the way, we have also learned what it means to become more like God. We have studied his goodness, love, mercy, grace, patience, holiness, peace, justice, jealousy, and wrath.

With a well-balanced view of God's character, we can better understand where we are out of balance. By understanding our own weaknesses and imitating God for strength, we can approach forgiveness with greater confidence. We now have the tools to remove the roadblocks so that we can continue on our journey toward forgiving.

Today's Challenge
In your journal, write about the anger or hatred you have felt against people who have hurt you with their evil actions. Ask God to give you the patience you need to pray for them while they work toward repenting for their sins. If it is safe to do so, think of ways to show your enemy God's love through acts of kindness.

God is Patient

We continue this week with our series, Removing the Roadblocks to Forgiveness. In our attempt to forgive our enemies, we seek to understand what it means to be righteous. Therefore, we are taking time to define God's character. So far, we have learned about his goodness, love, mercy, and grace. This week, we will look at God's patience, holiness, peace, justice, and protection. Today, we focus on his patience.

What is patience?
Webster's Dictionary tells us that patience is the capacity of calm endurance. The words patience and forbearance denote tolerance of something or somebody over a period of time, generally without complaint, through not necessarily without annoyance. Patience is an admirable endurance of a trying situation or person, usually through a passiveness which comes out of understanding. Forbearance denotes restraint, usually in the face of considerable provocation.

God is patient with us.
There are numerous Bible verses which indicate that God is patient and slow to anger. Psalm 86:15 (NIV) reads, But you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.

The apostle Paul summed up Christ's patience with us in I Timothy 1:15-16 (NIV):

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.

Like Paul, we sin so much that we try Christ's patience. But the Lord continues to show us mercy while we strive to become more like him, just as Paul did.

We must be patient with others.
If Christ is patient with us so that we can get our acts together in order to receive eternal life, it stands to reason that he is probably equally patient with our enemies. And if Christ can be patient with the people who hurt us deeply, then we must strive to be patient with them, too.

I really like the phrase slow to anger. If we think about what happens when we are impatient, it generally means that we are angry that someone isn't doing something fast enough to suit us.

If our perpetrator has not yet apologized to us, offered some form of restitution, or initiated reconciliation, we need to be patient with him. That means that we cannot become angry when he doesn't act according to our schedule. When the time is right, he may make the decision to surrender his life to Christ and begin the work necessary to restore relationships.

Practice patience in little ways.
Waiting for an enemy to apologize and make amends may take more patience than we can muster. In the meantime, we can develop greater patience by practicing it with others in small ways.

When the insurance company representative puts you on hold for your entire lunch break, remember to wait patiently and skip getting angry. When you're stuck in traffic for hours, focus on breathing deeply or listening to soothing music instead of raging at the cars ahead that aren't moving. When your child dawdles over cleaning up his room, give him the time he needs to accomplish the task. And when your spouse rambles on about something you really don't want to hear, give him your full attention.

People may try our patience and annoy us with their slowness. But if we want to be like God, we must learn to become more tolerant of irritating people, avoid complaining about them, understand why they are slower than we are, and refrain from rash judgments about them.

Forgiveness requires patience.
If we want to forgive someone, we must practice patience. Our enemy may need a lifetime to figure out how deeply he has hurt us and how important it is to us that he apologize. He may never reach these conclusions, but that doesn't matter. What is important is that we wait patiently for him to do his part as we work on our part in the forgiveness process.

Today's Challenge
In your journal, write down a list of people or things that try your patience. Next, make a second list of ways that you can practice greater tolerance, avoid complaining about these annoyances, understand why others may need more time than you do, or how you can better practice being slow to anger as God is.