A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
Proverbs 15:1
When I hear the word longsuffering, I think of my husband—no jokes please—but it is true! He is very patient and there are days (sometimes a lot of them…) when I am not as lovely of a person as I could be and my husband very patiently puts up with me. Let me tell you a story to demonstrate.
It was several years ago during an exceptionally busy stretch of life when we were both going 100 miles per hour just about all the time. We had gotten up early to go to our church’s early service and were talking about plans for the day. I was listing off item after item and my husband grumbled and kind of snapped at me. “Whoa!” I said exaggeratedly, someone is in a bad mood this morning!” He laughed and said that he would probably need a nap when we got home before he launched into all the things I wanted to do that day. My exaggerated-toned comment had made him laugh and snapped him out of his bad mood.
The following week we were again on our way to church, having a similar conversation as we had the week before, when this time he said something and I grumbled back at him. “Whoa!” he said, “Someone is in a bad mood!” I responded in decidedly not my best customer service voice, “Well you would be too if you had had the week I did!” My husband ducked his head and looked at me out of the corner of his eye before quietly saying that he had just been trying to make the same joke that I had made the week before—the one that had snapped him out of his bad mood. Whoops! The poor guy couldn’t win! I sheepishly squeaked out a laugh and said I had just been kidding when I bit his head off a second before—just to see if he would believe that line. He did not, but thankfully he accepted my apology and I was better after I took a nap that afternoon!
I am not a naturally patient person, which can be good when it comes to getting stuff done and setting plans in place, but generally when I am interacting with others, it can just cause problems. I have been blessed to know several very patient and long-suffering people in my life. These are people who despite having been dealt a tough hand in life still cheerfully keep keeping on and being a blessing to others. While they may have more to complain about on any given day than do I, they don’t. Instead they show up calmly, kindly, with seemingly endless capacity to deal patiently with others, and whatever else life decides to throw at them.
I can’t imagine what Jesus would have been like to be around. I cannot imagine how soothing it must have been to sit in his presence and listen to his teaching, and watch Him interact with others with grace and kindness.
When I come in contact with people to whom God has given a larger portion of gracefulness than He has me, it serves as a good reminder to me that we are to work on developing all the fruits of the spirit to become more like Christ so that others will look heavenward to Jesus who is the only perfect example.
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