Holiday Patience - Dinner #40

     Christmas is a WHOLE SEASON requiring PATIENCE!  If you have pets, you no doubt need patience as they try to climb the tree or tear into the presents, right now.  If your little ones are stuck inside the house, you need patience with their pent-up energy.  If your husband is working over-time, because of the holidays, you need patience with his busy schedule.  And if your baby girl is nearly 6- months-old and teething, like mine is right now, you need patience with her great amount of fussiness! SMILE!  LOVE is patient! I Corinthians 13:4,7 “Charity suffereth long, and is kind . . .  Beareth all things . . . endureth all things.” 

     Have you stood in a long line at WALMART, this month, or dealt with rude customers where you work?  Sometimes it takes an EXTRA MEASURE of patience and self-control to get along with others.  In Ephesians 4:1-2, Paul commands God’s children to, “. . . walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love . . .” God also wants us to have patience when people make mistakes or don’t do things exactly the way we want them to.  Colossians 3:12-13 declares, “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.” Time and time again, in the Scriptures, we see that OUR GOD is patient and forgiving.  Psalm 86:15 “But thou, O LORD, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth.” How very grateful we can be that God is patient with US! Should we not, therefore, strive to be patient with others?!

     For some people, the month of December places life in a sort of “holding pattern”, before January 1^st rolls around.  It can be a difficult time of hoping for answers.  Are you, perhaps, waiting to see if you will have enough money to return to college, next semester?  Are you prayerfully seeking the Lord about a missions opportunity, in the near future?  Sometimes we have to patiently wait for God’s will to be fulfilled in our lives.  Romans 8:25,28 “But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it . . . And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

     As a teacher, and later as a daycare worker, I was often told, “You must have a lot of patience to work with preschoolers!”   Patience in one area of life does not necessarily denote patience in other areas, however! LOL!  I will look out the window some dozen or more times, when I know my husband is expected home.  I check for email or Facebook replies, FREQUENTLY.  I tend to become quite irritable, if I’m waiting for someone, any more than 10 minutes past the time agreed upon.  Patience is not something that is learned and then “marked off a list” of desirable character traits.  It is a CONTINUAL struggle.  James 1:4 “But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”  Patience takes time! And what better time to work on developing it, than this busy holiday season! SMILE!  Take a deep breath, wait for God’s answers, be patient with loved ones as well as strangers, and have a very Merry Christmas! SMILE!

                                                                                        

Finding Faults - Dinner #39

     It disgusts me when I see it in others, and yet I know I’m often guilty of it, myself .  What is it? A downward spiral of finding fault with others.  What does that “finding fault with others” look like?  “Wait! You’re not doing that right!” . . . “Your dad left the trashcan open AGAIN, after I just asked him not to!” . . . “Are you EVER going to learn to wipe your feet at the door?!” . . . “You can’t give her the bottle that way! She’ll spill it all over herself!” . . . and so on.  We rebuke, we chide, we pick at little errors, and we find fault with every single thing that others are doing around us.  Luke 6:36-37 says, “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.  Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.”

     When we get in this mode of finding fault with others, do you know what is at the heart of it? PRIDE – pure and simple!  We find fault, because we have this notion that WE could do it much better!  If it were US with that job, we wouldn’t be late for supper!  If it were US doing the laundry, we wouldn’t let the clothes sit in the dryer until they were all wrinkled!  WE always do everything to perfection! Or do we? . . . There have been a few times in our marriage when Brandon has finally had to say to me, “I just can’t do anything right anymore, can I?!” Then I sadly realize that I have, once again, stepped onto that downward spiral of finding fault with others.  More often than not, when we step back and take a look, we find that WE are the ones who are truly at fault! Matthew 7:3 “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”  WE are the ones with sin in our lives and things that need correcting!

     Romans 14:4 says, “Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth . . .”  GOD is that other person’s Master!  He alone knows whether or not that person is truly standing or falling.  Do you know everything that other person has gone through? Do you know where they are  in their spiritual journey? No, you do not!  In I Samuel 16:7, God declares, “ . . . for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.”  Do YOU understand that person’s motives, when they do something a certain way? Do YOU know whether or not they honestly forgot to do what you asked of them?

     The Bible teaches that we had better be wary of judging other people a certain way. Matthew 7:1-2 commands, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.  For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” Do you realize that when you pick at others and constantly find fault with them, someone may one day do the same to you?  Would you like someone looking at YOUR work and never being satisfied? Would you like someone judging YOUR motives wrongly?  James 2:12 reminds us, “So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.”  We will one day be judged by GOD! How will WE measure up?  God says we had much better examine our OWN hearts and lives, instead of looking for faults in those around us.

     I think that sometimes we do not even stop to realize how detrimental and hurtful our judging comments can be.  We do not think about how much damage we can do to the heart of a spouse or a child.  As a Christian, shouldn’t we be trying to ENCOURAGE instead of DISCOURAGE?  I guarantee, we would be much happier people, if we worried more about correcting what is WRONG in our own heart, and looking for what is RIGHT in the hearts of others!  Philippians 2:3 “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.”