submitted by the Rev. James Henderschedt
“Be Patient,” we have been advised from childhood to the grave. Seldom are we reminded that it is a Spiritual Gift; and if a gift it is to be appropriated and used.
When my family was “going though” my Dad’s things after he died, we found, on the top shelf, in the corner of his closet, a stack of brand new white shirts he had received as gifts but never worn. I can remember our sad realization that these gifts were never used in the way they were intended….just stowed away, out of sight.
So, what does it mean to be gifted with patience? Is it merely idly bidding our time without complaints? Or is it something more….something that is active and alive?
Patience, as a Spiritual Gift, and as I see and understand it, is an awareness of a time-table other than our own and that, like a flower in the throes of blooming, unfolds in its own time. It means being able to surrender the need to control and allowing God to work in God’s own time and that while it is in the process we are discerning how we are part of the process. In other words, how we are used by God to accomplish God’s will in God’s own time.
Read Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
How can these verses aid you in appropriating the Spiritual Gift of Patience.
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