Love is patient. These words come from the infamous chapter on love, 1 Corinthians 13. I read this and think “What does it mean by patient? How was this patience exemplified in the life of Christ?”

Well, I’m going to try and answer those questions today. I looked up the word used for patience in this verse, and found that the Greek word used is Makrothumèo, which means “to suffer long, be longsuffering, as opposed to being given to hasty anger or punishment, to forbear, to endure patiently as opposed to despondency, involves exercising understanding and patience toward persons”

To me, this seems to be on of the most difficult concepts of love to grasp. So many times we lose patience with people, sometimes in the most ridiculous, worthless ways. A great illustration of this type of patience is found in 2 Peter 3:9. God demonstrates this aspect of love in a very, very real way.

“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering [patient] toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

Here, Peter states that the Lord is patient with us, waiting for us, he forbears, waiting for us to come to Him in repentance. He is God after all, He could have destroyed us. He could have left us for something else, but He didn’t. Knowing that God chose to be patient with us, knowing our sins, knowing our desire to live for the flesh, yet He still loved us enough to wait…and wait some more…and continue to wait, so that all, undeserving as we are, can come to Him, with our arms outstretched, desiring Him.

Another instance we see this patience is in Hebrews 6:15. Here the author is discussing the promise made to Abraham via God. It says

“And so, after he patiently endured, he obtained the promise”

First we saw God’s patience, and here we see the reciprocate. Many times, I think we as Christians think that certain things are for God, and God only, i.e. patience. We think, how are we to be patient? We’ll leave that up to God. But as we see in Hebrews, we are to reciprocate that patience as well. God is patient with us, and we need to be patient with Him. In my personal opinion, our patience towards God is more important. So many times we get ahead of God and his plans. We want things to happen now, blessings to come now, healing to happen now, etc. and we forget that maybe God doesn’t want it to happen now. Maybe God has us in this position for a reason, for a time of learning, for a time of blessing others. So, as a consequence of moving ahead of God, things begin to hurt, things begin to get complicated, and things begin to fail. It is imperative that we wait on God, for He waits on us to run to Him.

How do we see this patience exhibited in the life of Christ? The most apparent example to me, is Jesus’ relationship with His disciples. Everytime Jesus taught something, it seemed as though the disciples never understood. Yet, despite this, Jesus still taught. loving them with His entire being. If they didn’t get a concept, Jesus was always sure to explain it.

How can we exhibit the patience in our lives? I think we all know of areas where patience would be a necessity. In practically every area of our lives, we could use an ounce more of patience. Personally, though, I think that if we start by being patient with our Heavenly Father, patience will flow into other areas of our life. Being patient with our Creator, gives us the peace to know that He has all things under control, that all things are planned for a purpose. With that in mind, it will really help us to be patient with others, to be patient in all circumstances.

“The times we find ourselves having to wait on others may be the perfect opportunities to train ourselves to wait on the Lord.”

Joni Eareckson Tada