MIF 16:5 (Sept-Oct 1984)
Patience and God’s Love
“And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ” (2 Thessalonians 3:5).
God’s love is so vast and unfailing that it defies description. We can see it revealed in the actions and character of God’s people. We see its nature developed in 1 Corinthians 13, where the attributes of unselfish love are personified. The Apostle John says that God IS love and expresses his amazement at the splendor of the love which the Father has bestowed upon us, His children, as a gift (1 John 3:1).
God’s love for all mankind is expressed in John 3:16. Also, in John 15:9 & 12, our Lord teaches that we should let God direct our hearts to love one another as the Father has loved Him.
The Apostle Paul urges us to learn of the patience of Christ and let it work in our lives. Patience is one of the cardinal virtues and is perhaps one of the most difficult to develop; it is also the one we most often neglect to exercise. We live in an age of instant action and instant decisions, but time is not important to God, and we should learn to wait for His timing and leading in important matters. Let us pray for the grace to live with our difficulties and problems until God in His own time delivers us out of them, knowing that if we wait patiently for Him, “all things work together for good to them that love God” (Romans 8:28).
We learn from the example of Moses, who struck the rock in his impatience with Israel, and forfeited all right to the land of promise.
“For ye have need of patience that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise” (Hebrews 10:36).
—Arthur F. Wilder