"Patience is a virtue!" When I was a child, I heard that quite often. Learning patience was not an easy task for me, but having learned patience and the value of having patience, I am eternally grateful for those that taught me patience. One of God's greatest gifts is patience, in fact when love is described in 1 Corinthians "patience" is the first thing that Paul lists as part of the definition. Given this place of importance in the definition that Paul gives to us, I would think that patience has some spiritual importance in our daily walk with God. Patience stems from selflessness. When you learn patience, then you begin to consider the needs of those around you. Christ placed the lost of the world for hundreds of generations before Himself. He left the Glory of Heaven to be born of a virgin, to put on mortality, to live life as a man, to teach us about the Kingdom of God and how to gain access to it, to die on the Cross and raise Himself from the dead, to give us hope and salvation. All of these things that Christ accomplished were done from a heart of love for His Creation. There are many examples of Jesus demonstrating patience with His disciples and those that would persecute Him. One of the greatest examples of His patience and love is on the Cross when Jesus prays for those that didn't know what they were doing. How many of us would pray for the one putting us to death?
You may be wondering why I'm talking about patience. Working in the public, I have seen a lot of impatience lately from people. People that just can't wait for a sales associate to finish with the customer they are helping, because they feel they are more important than the other person. People that can't wait on a machine that will only do a job at a certain pace, but they feel that their time is too valuable to wait. People that think their problem is so important that everyone must stop what they are doing to solve it. People that think rules are fine, as long as you don't try to apply the rules to them, because they shouldn't be responsible for their actions. Patience applies to all of these situations, because with patience a person does not expect the world to stop and serve their needs. As Christians, we should be shining examples of patience when those who are lost and living in the world can't find patience in the dictionary. We are supposed to be beacon's on a hill showing the world which way they should go. We are supposed to be the light of the world. Happily, I can report that most Christians I know seem to have great patience.
My concern is that Christians have a bad habit of following the example of the world, instead of being the example to the world. Please, of all the bad examples the church has taken from the world, do not become impatient. Impatience leads to selfishness, which leads to worldliness. Please, be the example and show patience to those without patience. By doing so, you show them love, not worldly love, but the Love of Christ that is within each of you.
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