Patience,
Wisdom & Love
God's way of answering the Christian's prayer
for more patience, experience, hope and love often is to put him into the
furnace of affliction. Richard Cecil
Have you ever prayed for patience or how
about wisdom or love? Too many times I
think when we pray for these things we expect a different result from God don’t
we? We want him to make us instantly
patient with the person we work with who irritates us. We expect God to make us wise beyond our
years without any effort on our part.
Then there is the whole love thing.
God tells us specifically to love our enemies but I think too many times
we want Him to make exceptions. We try
to rationalize it with God. “God, You
really don’t want me to associate with that sinner do You? This person has treated me badly and You
still expect me to love them?”
Sometimes God answers our prayers by throwing
us into the very fire we are trying to escape from. He challenges us to step up to the plate and
hit a home run, but too many times we swing and miss the ball altogether
because we haven’t figured out that the challenge God has placed before us is
His answer.
If you want to learn to be patient you will
need to be in a circumstance that requires extreme patience and sometimes it
takes a long time and we are required to exercise it over and over again. If you want God’s wisdom you aren’t going to
get it by going to the store and buying a program and downloading it. You will need to search for it. Sometimes the best way to learn something is
repeating it over and over again. Then
there is the whole love thing. Love our
neighbor who irritates us; love the person who hurt us. This kind of love takes sacrifice, so don’t
be surprised if God puts you in the exact place where a person is most unloving
to you.
God doesn’t respond the way we think He
should because He is God and we are not.
If we learn that one simple rule, our lives will be much easier and we
will be able to see His work in everything we do. When it comes to God, expect the unexpected.
Prayer for the Day:
Heavenly Father, I praise You for teaching me Your precepts by placing me into
the very circumstance that I want to avoid.
The best lessons I have learned in life and the ones that stick with me are
the very ones I prayed for You to remove.
If I understand this concept, I will learn patience, wisdom and
love.
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