But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.”
Romans 8:25
Winter / Summer Hope
It’s Winter! Many of us have been patiently waiting to welcome and enjoy this cold season with it’s brisk, fresh and blustery air. And, now it’s here! Enjoy! If you are, in fact, a “Winter person”, your perseverance invoice for enduring a hot Summer is paid in full. Your prayers for God to shelter you from the searing heat of summer are now answered.
Many of us, however, relish one or all of the other warmer seasons. We long for them when the Winter chill disrupts our lives with frosty days and arctic nights. We reminisce about family and friends around a warm fire when freezing weather isolates us from others. We pray, please Lord, “when will our the cold season of isolation end?” We patiently wait for God’s inevitable and warmer seasonal plan to unfold.
Faithful Patience Brings Victory
Whatever our seasonal preference, we know that we must be patient in waiting for more pleasant times that fit our liking. That is the truth of life! We must persevere with hope for more satisfying days. Just get through or cope with what we don’t appreciate in order to savor what we do in due time. As surely as we grow one year older each 365 days — Spring, Fall, Winter, and Summer will steadily come and go. God created dynamic cycles to life in order to sustain life in the most meaningful way. Change, therefore, is crucial to everyone’s natural cyclical livelihood and betterment. It is, indeed, purposeful. God’s purposeful plan to change each season into the next is His cyclical structure to life. On a very basic level, it teaches us patience. We must patiently and actively wait with perseverance through all cycles of life as we learn coping skills to enhance our troubled moments. In some way, we adapt. To some degree, we develop patience no matter our comfort levels.
With time, our discomfort gives way to comfort, and vice versa. Patience in faithfully waiting for the pleasures of our hearts is the true virtue that assuredly pays repeated benefits, time and time again. Hopefully, we improve as well as cope over time, also. In actuality, “we hope for what we do not see, [and] we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.” Patiently or persistently waiting with a hopeful or faithful heart (actively waiting) gives birth to God’s gracious blessings and promises found in His Word, the Holy Bible. Faithful patience brings victory!
Worshiping God Through Patience
Did you know that God is Spirit? John 4:24 says, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. ”To worship Him in spirit and truth means that we must first know and faithfully believe in His Spirit revealed in the Holy Bible. The Bible is Truth and the attributes of God’s Spirit must be found there, right? And, friends, we discover the hallmark of God’s Spirit in Galatians. Because we want to learn the “Truth” of life that is required to faithfully worship God, we will firstly seek the way to worship Him there, as the Apostle John directed. Our goal is to know Him and exercise and strengthen the fruit of His Spirit within us, right? So, as we strive on this path towards faithful worship, we can realize with His blessed assurance that, one day, we will achieve true living through the active, incorporate fruit of His Spirit. Most specifically relative to this blog, we want God’s Spirit of Patience to gain a foothold in our stance of submissive, but active, waiting! With time (and perseverance, of course) we will know each Fruit of God’s Spirit and, thus hopefully realize a life filled with the blessings and promises of His holy attributes. Let’s start with Patience, hoping with endurance that one day, in good portion, we can grow all God’s Spiritual Fruit in heartfelt abundance!
Patience, the Overture to God’s Bountiful, Spiritual Life
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”
Galatians 5:22-23
When I first read Galatians 5:22-23, I was challenged in each area of spirituality. Friends, I still am! But, at that time, my Godly Spirit definitely needed extreme nurturing to create God’s beautiful spirit-filled melody in my life. Now, my life’s song still requires God’s fine tuning to reach the high notes without falling flat, but I believe that I’m progressing. Now, I believe that I have reached a point where I can actively seek with greater passion God’s next level of spiritual improvement. I chose to start with His virtuous character of Patience. For my life, Patience was the first fruit to reap before I could fully and successfully harvest the remainder.
Patience has always been and still is difficult for me to master. Let’s put it this way — if patience were my violin in concert with God’s ways, I would definitely not be sitting “First Chair”! But, God’s Word promises that if I patiently wait and with faithful (active) perseverance, I can achieve victory over my poor performance. I do, however, have to continually and fervently practice the notes in the Godly scores of music. I have to persevere with hope in the victory of accomplishing my spiritual goals with practice of the symphonic piece, measure by measure. And, for me, Patience seems to be the first harmonic challenge to ultimately learn, practice, and reach all the lines of high notes on God’s sheet music of Life.
For me, Patience is the Overture to God’s bountiful, spiritual symphony of life. And, I am pleased to report that my Spirit of Patience is actively opening up to more refined melodies that hopefully are pleasing to God and others. It hasn’t been easy! The road to harmonic living was and is still long! Unrelenting practice of God’s Word keeps me headed in the right direction. And, I still have farther to go. But, I realize that I must faithfully seek with perseverance and hope to cultivate each and every one of God’s spiritual measures until I accomplish my goal to share in His operatic Godly spirit. Thus, for me, first Patience! Patience serves as the prelude to my total performance filled with just the right measures of love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Through Patience, I can actively create, develop, and play in life’s bountiful concert containing the remaining Spiritual Fruit. The concert written as the purest symphony of life is composed in Galatians 5 by God Himself. Hopefully, one fine day, I’ll sit “First Chair”!
Loving God’s Word, Patiently Victorious!
I keep loving God’s Word and His Spiritual characteristics with all my heart. I faithfully believe that there is no other way to live in harmony with God, others and myself, as well. It is, quite simply, paramount to God’s purposeful plan that we learn His loving heart and fruitfully seek to live in His spiritual ways — the ways of the Fruit of God’s Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). Learning and living with God’s heart, however, truly requires Patience. It doesn’t happen over night or even in one year. It takes seasons, coming and going, to nurture and grow. We have to endure times of discomfort with hopeful hearts for a more favorable future. We have to be plowed in the Spring and planted with the seeds of new spirits, grow and cultivate our newness in the Summer, suffer pruning in the Fall, and patiently wait during cold Winters for Spring’s new growth. We either seek or tolerate each season in hope and faith, knowing that with perseverance what we do not now see will one day appear in robust produce! We will reach our long sought goals of continual personal growth and improvement. With such patient perseverance, we will cultivate and harvest an abundance of productive living for ourselves and those within our influential circles. We can, then, enjoy a victoriously blessed life in concert with God and others. We can, if you will, move up to “First Chair”!