Patience & Kindness

Patience and kindness are not easy disciplines. Just try waiting until something happens over which you have no control, or the bus shows up at the end of the rain storm, maybe a meaningful conversation with a spouse or child, or the resolution of a conflict. Patience and kindness are not just waiting passivity until someone else does something; they force us to live each moment to the fullest, to be completely present in a situation and to taste the here and now of where we are.

You might describe these attributes as love for the long haul; bearing up under difficult circumstances, without giving up or giving in to anger, frustration, or bitterness. These fruits of the spirit force us to work when gratification is delayed. It means taking what life offers, even if that offering is suffering, without lashing out or quitting. Patience and kindness are basic elements of Christianity! The power to wait, to persevere, to hold out, to endure to the end, recognizing one’s own limitations, not to force issues by playing the hero or the problem solver, but to practice the virtues that defined Jesus ministry, the meekness of the Lamb.

In many ways patience and kindness serve as a protection against temptations and wrongs as clothes do against cold. If you put on more clothes as the cold increases you will have the power to endure it because you have insulated yourself from it’s dangerous effects. As we grow in the fruit of a spirit-led life, we meet with great wrongs and challenges shielded by a spiritual protection tried and demonstrated by our Lord to work in powerful ways.