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Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Who Is Your Own Worst Enemy?


Who is                                                    
Your Own Worst Enemy? 
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Galatians 5:22 NIV

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

Mothers are a great example of patience.  A few years ago when I was three, my mother was painting my room, and I thought painting was really neat.  According to my mother who loved telling this story, I started asking, "Mama, I want to paint."  

Of course, the answer was no, "but mama I can do it, I know I can."
I was really persistent with mother's patience.  We went back and forth, as her patience wore thin, and with my insistence getting stronger, the telephone rang.  Of course, I was too young to answer the phone so she wiped her brush off a bit and answered the phone....and started talking... and then, sat down.  Bad thing!

I am sure of my thinking was along the lines of, "I will show her I am a big boy and can help her paint."  So, I dipped the brush in the paint and started painting.  About 45 minutes later she hung up the phone and came back to 'her' painting.  "He was so proud,"  she would tell people years later, "He painted Everything in sight, at his height.  He started with the walls, the window, the closet, the dresser, the bed, the headboard, the back of the headboard, the bed, the bed covering..... literally.   If it were at my height and it didn't move, it was painted.

When we lack patience, we often make a mess of things just like I did in my room.  Since I do not have a memory of this event, it is unlikely that my mother did much in the way of 'teaching' corrective action (aka punishment).  I think she showed extreme patience as she washed the paint off of me and the other things in the room.  

Teaching middle school and being a Boy Scout leader took and taught me much in the way of patience, and I had learned well from my mother.  In searching the NIV Bible translation, we find 17 uses and mostly definitional information about having patience with ourselves and others.  Those references are listed below and give us great learning and teaching tools..

I especially learned the value of patience in teaching keyboarding skills.  I also taught many students to be patient with themselves.  As I taught students to type without looking at their fingers, so many of them would really resist.  All I could do is tell them, "This is new and it is hard, but like many things you have to be patient with yourself."  Just as they learned to do the typing skill  and nearly all of them came to be very happy in typing without looking at your fingers, perhaps the most important behavior and skill I taught was being patient with themselves.

In a like manner, we need to learn to be patient with ourselves.  It is difficult to be patient with others, if we cannot be patient with ourselves.   Jesus did not talk about or refer to patience in His sermons, talks, and lessons.  He talked about many behaviors we should have, but never about patience.    He did not define patience as that would make it too easy for us.  He knows what is good for us and wants us to see real patience, His patience in the example He sets for us to follow.  As He taught us to show mercy because God is merciful, so too, we should show patience with others because God is constantly patient with us as we seek to be like Jesus in our walk with Him.

It is in our patience we work better with others and in our patience we more easily forgive our enemies.  As He is with us, in patience we show love, for it is in our patience we better learn to do God's will; and, in our patience and prayers, we come to know God's timing in our work for Him and His will for us in our daily living.

In your prayers, pray for having patience in all elements of your life, but especially pray for God through the Holy Spirit to give you the gift to have patience for yourself.  If not, you could be your own worst enemy.


Thanks be to God.
lonnie
(c) 2013

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Source:
http://www.biblestudytools.com/search/?q=patience&c=&t=niv&ps=20&s=Bibles
                                                                                
© lonnie coggins



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lonnie

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