Love Waiting

Well, I am trying to do some on-line training. However, the site that I am trying to do my training does not want to cooperate. So, I am doing a quick blog entry while I am waiting for tech support.

I don't know about you, but there are some things that I am very good at waiting for. It drives my wife bananas that I can patiently wait for Christmas or my birthday and not need to know what I am getting. She will occasionally ask me if I want any 'hints,' and I politely tell her, "nah... No thanks." Believe it or not, this sometimes starts over a month out. Needless to say, she isn't very patient when it comes to wanting to know what her gifts are.

I believe that all of us can be very patient with some things and very impatient with other things. Some people can exercise great patience in almost every area of their life, while others are very impulsive with most areas of their lives. Don't you wish you could have "the patience of Job" in all areas of your life? I know that I do, sometimes. The thing is, patience is a learned skill, and one that is very perishable (can be easily lost), in my opinion.

The thing is, if you ask a large number of people how they became patient, many of them (dare I say almost all of them) would confess that they learned patience out of necessity with dealing with adversity. Instead of God just 'granting them patience' in a miraculous way, God challenged them to learn patience through trial. I know, not fun, huh?

One of the ancient words used in the Old Testament for God's love is 'hassad.' It means 'steadfast or long-suffering love.' It means that God's love endures, is exceptionally patient with us as we mess up and rebel against Him. He continues to call to us, in spite of the fact that we willfully walk away. In fact, God's 'hassad' is so great, not only did He stoop to our level, He also took our sins upon Himself so that we could be redeemed. I encourage you to reflect on that this Lent.