JULY 2016
- PATIENCE IS LIKE A DIAMOND
An amazing
thing happened this week that proved to me that through faith and quoting a
particular scripture, one of the Fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians
5:22 had fully developed, and we didn’t even know it.
This past
Wednesday, I woke up in a sweat. I checked the thermostat, and it was over 80
degrees at 4 a.m.! The temperatures have been 109 degrees to 113 degrees during
the day, so we had to get this fixed as soon as possible. I had to be at work,
and my roommate Jane had an appointment at 1:00 p.m. We had to think about the
cat and the dog, call the insurance people who would call the air conditioning
company, and we also needed to figure out a place to stay until it could be
fixed. We had lots of arranging to do and were chock full of pressure.
We actually
handled it well, one thing at a time. Jane took me to work, called the
insurance, went back to check on the animals, called me, and was able to make
her 1 o’clock appointment. The air conditioning guys couldn’t make it out until
Friday, so the next two days were a whirlwind of driving me to work, driving
back to check on the animals, getting our stuff to the motel and checked in,
back again to check on the animals, getting a ride after work to the motel. And
in the middle of this, we had a quick rainstorm and a flash flood.
But with all
the tension and stress of the situation, we didn’t even argue one time. When
the anxiety mounted up, we shut up and didn’t let it out of our mouths. We just
kept our trust in the Lord that all would be well, the air conditioning would
be an easy fix, the animals would be fine, and everything would be okay. And it
was.
Galatians 5:22
tells us: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith.” We ate some of that
“longsuffering” fruit. The Greek word for “longsuffering” means “patient
enduring.”
Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words says: “Patience only
grows in trial.” In other words, patience is only developed under pressure, so
we don’t even know we have it until we’re put to the test.
Lots of times, we don’t see what the Spirit is doing to change our lives,
and we even may wonder if anything is really happening. I know that since the
beginning of the year, Jane and I have had several opportunities to be
stressed. We were both very aware of the reason: I started working on
publishing my second WINGS book. The adversary hit me with just about
everything he could to get me to quit. But with Jane’s help and the help of
friends like you, I didn’t give up.
Every day on the way to work, I would say Philippians 4:6 and 7 along
with the other scriptures we quote. It says: “Be careful [anxious] for nothing; but in everything by
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto
God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep
your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
Then when this
incident with the air conditioning happened, and we were put under even more
pressure, we just kept the faith and trusted in the Lord all the way through.
We even got a mini-miracle: The air conditioning guys were scheduled to come
late Friday afternoon, but they had a cancellation, so they were able to come
at 9 a.m.
When the whole
incident was over, we discovered that in this experience, the fruit had become
fully ripe. I can honestly say, it’s as if the entire thing never happened.
We talked this
morning about what could have happened if we had let the stress get to us: we
could have argued about things, which would have brought about emotional
strife, which would have remained and would have needed to be handled after the
incident of the air conditioning was long over.
So many other
negative things could have happened and lingered beyond the actual incident,
but because that fruit of patience (longsuffering) was already developed, when
the event was over, the stress just fell off like a scab and had no more effect
on us at all – like it never even happened.
It's not
great, humanly, that patience (longsuffering) only gets developed under
pressure. It’s just NOT fun, but once you’ve been through it, it’s amazing and
thrilling and a great joy to know you really have it.
Like Jane
reminded me this morning, a diamond is formed only under pressure. And we’ve
found that true forbearance (patience) is a very precious diamond to own.
Love, Carolyn
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