Patience – Bible in 90: Day 70
I’m preaching at my campus ministry through the Fruit of the Spirit this spring, and this Sunday night’s fruit-of-the-week (no jokes please!) is Patience. So I find it interesting that of the ~30 times this word shows up in the New Testament, it occurs twice in Matthew 18.
The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant is, quite frankly, terrifying. Think Jesus is all hearts and flowers? Not after reading this one. Here we find him hammering home just how important it is to enact forgiveness.
But I find it interesting how the pleas for forgiveness are framed: “be patient with me!” How hard it is to wait on someone who has wronged us, who owes us something. Even more so if this is a repeated offence, as Peter frames the question in v 21.
But waiting on one another to grow in God’s grace, bearing patiently with one another even in their sin is endemic to the very fabric of the Kingdom. Jesus’ parable reminds me of a line from an Anglican night prayer service: after the community has corporately confessed their sins, the presider pronounces God’s forgiveness and the hope that God will give “time for the amendment of life.”
When I am tempted to hurry up the tempo of my spiritual life, to move on to the next thing, to rush into judgement…I remember how patient God continues to be with me.
May we all encounter the gracious slowness of God!
The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness… (Exodus 34:6)
