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Honey From The Rock Psalm 81:16 |
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PUTTING UP WITH PEOPLE This entry was posted on 08-26-2009 and is filed under RESPONSIBILITY. "Patience is the ability to put up with people you'd like to put down" (Ulrike Ruffert). Oh, I know this is true in my own life, how about you? Sometimes God allows irritating people or circumstances to enter our lives to teach us the important life lesson of patience.
Jesus was very patient with people, especially His disciples. Surely they must have tested His patience with their inability to understand what Jesus was teaching them (see Acts 1:6-8). Or by their speech or behavior that told Him they still "just didn't get it." To the two men on the road to Emmaus Jesus said, "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!" (Luke 24:25). But our Lord did not lose patience with those whom He taught. In both cases He went on to instruct them further until they finally did "get it." Patience is a Christian responsibility. "...Be patient, bearing with one another in love" (Eph. 4:2). Patience goes hand-in-hand with forbearance. "And we urge you, brothers...be patient with everyone" (1 Thess. 5:14). The ancient Greeks had a proverb: "One minute of patience, ten years of peace." Right now I am thinking of how many churches have suffered years - even decades - of division and discord because "one minute of patience" was not practiced. I don't do embroidery but I know that it takes patience. Oliver Wendell Holmes quipped, "Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern; it will come out a rose by and by." He went on to say: "Life is like that; one stitch at a time taken patiently, and the pattern will come out all right like embroidery." Prayer: Patient and Loving Father, grant us the patience of an embroiderer. Through Christ we pray. |
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