Tag Archives: patience is a gift we give ourselves

Patience

Patience.

Do you sometimes feel it is like a bad tasting medicine…good for you but you don’t want to taste it?  And you certainly don’t want to WAIT for it?!

Trials have the capacity to produce patience. That’s why some folks have told me, “I NEVER ask for patience, because I don’t want the suffering that goes with it.”

But do we really need to wait for some calamity to come upon us in order to learn patience? Steven Covey once said the one thing that separates us from the rest of the animals is our ability to create a space between stimulus and response. That space is called patience. For example, someone says something unkind to you. You have a choice: you can react or you can wait a moment and act with patience. What does a moment cost you? People who react think they need to change someone else’s bad behavior. (Ever notice how it is difficult to give someone a piece of your mind and also have peace in that same moment?) People who wait and act with patience have learned the secret:

Patience is not a dreaded virtue that has to follow unbearable suffering. Patience is an everyday choice to be good to yourself and to the world around you. 

Love is Patient. It waits. It creates a space where it might grow in unlikely places, like flowers that seem to grow out of rocks. It invites kindness and goodness to come stay awhile, even if only in your own heart.  

The good news is that just about every part of the day is an opportunity to use this gift: in the checkout lane, behind a slow driver, when the child spills their milk AGAIN, when the phone rings during a quiet time, when you make a mistake, when the toast burns.

Got patience? Try it. You’ll like the taste of it!

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 1 Corinthians 13:4

We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses;  in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger;  in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love.  2 Corinthians 6:3-6