Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Some months back I was on a cycling holiday with my friend Rev Rach Ward in Eastbourne. On the first day of our holiday, we cycled up to Beachy Head, which was no mean feat – why did I think the South Coast was flat!? At the end of our ride, we spent some time soaking up the sun before it set for the evening. We sat on the beach easing our weary legs. We had only been there about 10minutes or so before I had to get up and wander along the shore. I was too impatient to stay sitting around. Whilst I was gone Rach sat patiently on the shingle and built a tower of pebbles, which remained standing possibly even after we had left.
My tower of pebbles only numbered about 4 pebbles, however Rach managed to balance 12, carefully choosing each pebble for its size and shape.
I simply didn’t have the patience to improve on my cursory effort.
In our recent house group Bible Study session, where we were exploring “the call to ongoing change and community”, the icebreaker question was – if you had one opportunity to change one thing about you – physically, or in your temperament- what would it be? None of us wanted to change anything about our physical appearance (acceptance of growing grey gracefully), however several of us wanted to have more patience – me being one of them.
Patience is a fruit of the Spirit that many of us may wish to develop more.
God is an example of Divine patience, he waits for us, watches over us, and welcomes us when we draw near to him.
May we learn patience with others and with ourselves – who knows I might be able to build a tower of 12 pebbles next time!