LOVE IS PATIENT

Oh, how I wish I had more patience. Whether it's loosing those extra kilos or waiting for the right person in your life or even waiting for promotion at work place. It requires lot of patience. I’m prone to impatience. I can’t honestly blame this merely on my temperament or in this fast moving world of everything being so instant. I’m not sure why “Love is patient” is the first thing in the list in 1 Corinthians 13. Forget the rest of his list for a moment. God has been teaching me to be patient. Waiting patiently is so hard. Here are few things on patience.

Patience is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Impatience is a fruit of selfishness. Selfishness seeks its own private happiness at the expense of others. Love seeks its happiness in the happiness of the beloved. Love is patient because patience is a dying to selfishness.

We are to be:

• “Patien[tly] bearing with one another in love,” (Ephesians 4:2)
• “Patient with them all [the idle, fainthearted, and weak]” (1 Thessalonians 5:14)
• “Reprov[ing], rebuk[ing], and exhort[ing], with complete patience” (2 Timothy 4:2)
• “Patient in tribulation” (Romans 12:12)
• “Patiently endur[ing]…sufferings” (2 Corinthians 1:6)
• “Patiently enduring evil” (2 Timothy 2:24)
• “Imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Hebrews 6:12)
• “Still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” (Psalm 37:7)
• “Patient…until the coming of the Lord” (James 5:7)

We are to be patient with people, pain, evil, and God.

Patience requires both faith and humility. It requires that whenever things go differently than we wish, we believe that God is working all things for good, that he will complete all the good things He begins and that we can trust Him.

Ultimately, love is patient because God is patient!

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GOD PROVIDES

Genesis 22:2

Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

Just like God told Abraham to sacrifice his son whom he loved so much, God told me that I need to sacrifice people whom I love. I have climbed Mt. Moriah over and over again. I held people I love dearly. Nothing could snatch them away from me. God had to deal with me. Every time I started getting close to people rather than getting close to God, He would ask me to sacrifice them. I had to let many people go from my life. Letting go off people whom you love is not easy. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for Abraham to sacrifice his ONLY son, whom he LOVED. I had to obey God without questioning Him just like Abraham. I climbed Mt. Moriah, I laid people on the altar and God took them away from me. He did not stop.

The last time I climbed Mt. Moriah, it was very hard. I laid the person whom I love the most on the altar. I also laid my desires, my strength, my weakness, my marriage, my family, my job, my future, my tears; I laid EVERYTHING on the altar. I gave him to God. I gave my Isaac to God. This time, God gave him back to me. Indeed God provides. No wonder Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

There may be situations in our life where the Lord is asking to lay something on the altar. It may be something close to your heart. A loved one, a loved job, a loved vehicle, a loved thing, a loved house or even a loved place. You may have to obey God and climb Mt. Moriah. Lay it on the altar. God may either give it back to you or take it away from you for your good. He is God. He knows the best for you. He loves you.

Are you ready to climb Mt. Moriah now?

The story of Abraham is found in Geneisis 22 1-18

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