Issue 883 – Patience – October 15, 2022
You know the feeling. You don’t feel like cooking on Friday night, so you call your favourite pizza parlour and order. It will be available at your door hot and ready in 30 minutes.
At 15 minutes, you start checking your watch and your anticipation grows. The same happens at 25 minutes. At the 30-minute mark, you are listening intently for the doorbell as your stomach growls.
At 35 minutes no pizza, and you begin to get annoyed. At 45 minutes, you are working yourself up into a state, and you call them. The delivery driver had a flat and will be there in 15-20 minutes.
The pizza parlour apologizes and says the pizza will be free. That helps, but you continue to wait very impatiently. Finally, it arrives, and your patience is rewarded, but you are so upset you don’t enjoy the pizza. You vow never to use them again (until the next time you want pizza).
Patience is hard to come by. God has worked on me in that area since I became a believer. I think I am far more patient than I used to be, but I have a long way to go.
Patience is being in God’s waiting room. It is a gift and skill that can only be honed by having to exercise it. There is no magical shortcut. We learn patience by being patient as we wait.
The Lord provides us with the perfect example of patience.
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands,[a] forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation. Exodus 34:6-7
The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Psalm 103:8
And for about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness. Acts 13:8
What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? Romans 9:22-24
I am grateful for the Lord’s long-suffering and patient nature. I would be doomed without it, as would you.
Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. James 5:7-12
As we wait patiently for the LORD, my friends, let us never lose heart. He always comes through at just the perfect time and exactly the right way.
As we wait, let us practice patience with one another.
Patience comes with practice. Let us enjoy and benefit from the practice that ordinary life provides. Waiting gives us cause to forgive and be gracious to others. We all need to be recipients of grace and mercy.
Be blessed
Hallelu Yah / Praise God
Kevin
Gleanings From The Word
Experience an extraordinary God in ordinary life.
Soli Deo Gloria (For the glory of God alone)
__________________________________________
Please like and share this post with friends and your circle of influence. Also, feel free to comment.
Did you know that we have an email version? Same great content but in a different format. It is ideal when you don’t want to check your FaceBook or to share with friends who don’t do FaceBook.
Subscribe today https://mailchi.mp/f27bbeb09c22/ gleanings-1
___________________________________________
All contents, “Gleanings From The Word” and “Experience an Extraordinary God in Ordinary Life,” are © 2001, 2022 K.F. “Kevin” Corbin Gleanings From The Word.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture is from the English Standard Version (ESV).
___________________________________________
#Gleanings #devotional #encouragement #Biblestudy #dailyBible #GleaningsFromTheword #KevinCorbin #bible #jesus #god #faith #christian #love #Christ #Father #Holyspirit #YHWH #yahweh #Jehovah #bibleverses #jesuschrist #church #prayer #christianity #pray #scripture #gospel #hope #truth #godisgood #worship #believe #blessed #amen #grace #Word #verseoftheday #hope #biblequotes
#patience #waiting #pizza