Dear Sisters,
I am not a patient individual by nature. Then, God blessed me with a husband… and five children. In fact, I have begun to write this while nursing my youngest. If I could, I would add a few more activities from my to-do list, but I have a feeling that would only result in incomplete chores and a wailing child. As you can imagine, I have a tremendous need for patience. I sorely wish God would “ding” me on the head and magically change me into a phenomenally long suffering woman. Since God is not the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella, my gut tells me I have been signed up for patience-lessons.
Paul wrote the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. If the Spirit resides within me, why am I not good, kind, joyful, and patient at all times? Well, becoming a new creature in Christ resembles a slave being freed from her master who can choose to return to the master and work like a slave again (though the chains are broken), or leave and create a new life. As a new believer, Christ freed the maid from the chains to sin, but He did not place her on a throne, she remains in her world. In other words, as believers, we can now choose to act patiently instead of blowing up in anger, but it is not as if our brains have been completely altered and the only option we have is to be patient. If they had, we would effectively be robots, destroying the reason God created us in the first place.
That brings to mind non-believers patiently loving their own children. Surely the church does not hold the monopoly on virtue. Non-believers can be gentle, peaceful, and kind. The difference between the world’s virtue and the church’s is the goal. Christ admonishes us to love others. A worldly individual chooses to act in accordance with God’s law, or to love others in order to gain for themselves—whether to gain admiration from others or to avoid punishment, their goal is selfish. A believer’s actions should be motivated by the desire to love and follow Christ.
“It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.” Gal. 5:1. This seemed to me to be self-explanatory—who would want to walk back into jail after having been freed? But then I realized that I do have a tendency to return to a prison of rules—because they are familiar and it is easy to point, full of pride, to their ‘refinement’ in my life. I often surround myself and my family with inflexible rules—the right way to do laundry, what to eat, when to rest, the correct way to address others. If those rules are not followed, you can see the impatience seething within me. “You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?” Gal. 5:7. Jesus didn’t suffer and die to free me only to enslave me to another set of rules that become the focus—the idol. He freed me so I could be absorbed searching after God’s heart. “Faith working through love” is Jesus’ goal for us (Gal. 5:6).
It is important to note that Christ’s mandate is not to feel love, but to work, to act in love. In the same way, patience is an action, not a feeling. My husband said he thought I am incredibly patient. I looked at him as if he had two heads. Me? Are you talking to the same person that feels like ants are crawling under her skin when for the 100th time I have to remind one of our children to do something correctly? I know I am going to feel the ‘ants’ of impatience, but I don’t have to follow their leading. If I am running by the Spirit, producing fruit, there is no time or room for the deeds of the flesh.
Running with you,
Rebecca