Love is Patient
1 Corinthians 13:4
I met some one new last weekend at the family event of a mutual friend. It was nice to get out and meet some new people but it was a little difficult to find the location. It was out in the country on rarely traveled roads. So, the common experience for us upon meeting was the adventure of finding the place!
Quickly, my new acquaintance who had arrived with her husband was telling us about their trip there. Her husband drove and started in the wrong direction from their home. “WHERE are you going?” she asked him imitating the attitude in her tone of voice for us as she told the story. He asked, “well, how would you go?” (without attitude). She, with attitude, “not like this!”
The rest of the story was that she gave directions that he followed and they arrived, not just on time but ahead of the rest of us.
Now, I am not bothered that the wife told the husband how to get someplace. She knew how to get there. He thought he did and possibly he did – but would have taken another route. She didn’t ask where he was going expecting a real conversation. There was judgment in the question that clearly said to her husband, “wrong again!”
Why is it that we are most impatient with our family members and especially our spouses? If love is patient and kind as the Bible clearly tells us, why don’t we show patience and kindness to those we love? Patience is the first thing Paul mentions when he starts to define love in 1 Corinthians 13:4. It’s listed as a fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5. In Ephesians 4 Paul tells us to live our lives with patience.
Impatience is sin. Ouch! Isn’t everyone impatient sometimes? It’s a sin that we pretend is not a sin or at least not a sin for us (only those who are impatient with us!). This sin needs to be confessed and turned from like any other.
Today, let’s pay attention to the way we treat our husbands, wives, parents, in-laws, and even our children or our co-workers. Are we impatient with those that we say we love and respect? In Colossians 3:12 Paul tells us to “put on” patience. It’s an effort, we need to make a conscious decision to be patient.
Where would you and I be if the Lord would not have been patient with us?