“Patience is better than pride.” Ecclesiastes 7:8 NLT
Doing some research in preparation
for talking about patience, I came across this verse in Ecclesiastes. I don’t remember reading it before, but I
know I have. My initial reaction was,
“Why is the Preacher (many scholars name for the author of Ecclesiastes)
comparing pride and patience? He talks as if the absence of one would cause the
other. That stopped me in my tracks.
When I am prideful, I inflate my
value to be more important than it really is.
More than that, I am tempted to see myself as being more important than
others. I convince myself that I
shouldn’t have to wait in line for the Doctor. That person should have already
responded to my text, email, or phone call.
Don’t they know how important my issue is? Why hasn’t God answered my prayer? I’ve been praying for this for months! I think you get the picture. I know that none of you have such thoughts,
so today’s message is for me. 😊
Patience is an antidote for
prideful behavior. Why I wait in line, I
can remind myself that there are others who are waiting too who are just as
valuable as me. I can also use the time
to pray or read a quick Bible verse (or a really brilliant devo from your
favorite pastor ever). Instead of
letting my prideful resentment grow while I wait for someone to respond to me,
I can patiently contact them to ask if everything is alright and graciously
remind them I would like to have a response.
By the way, more than once when I have done this, I’ve discovered that
the person I was tempted to be impatient with was experiencing a crisis and led
me to compassion instead of pride. Yes,
sometimes the person was just being inconsiderate and ignoring my message. But even then, exercising patience keeps me
from also being inconsiderate in return.
Turning to the issue of “unanswered” prayer, patiently waiting for
God strengthens our faith muscles while
impatiently expecting God to answer our prayers leads to what old English
translations of the Bible call haughtiness,
a entitled expectation that God should answer my prayer because I
deserve it.
When you sense impatience rising in
your spirit, ask yourself some questions?
What assumptions am I making about the person/situation that is the
object of my impatience? Do I sense some
movement in my spirit towards pride?
Patience is a fruit of the Spirit
at work in us, so we are not alone in our efforts to summon the patience we
need to move away from pride. Quiet
meditative prayer often helps us access the Spirit within us. Patience is really better than pride. I
invite us all to try it and see. We’ll
talk more about this next time.
Prayer: Patient God,
help us see any prideful attitudes in our spirit towards you or other
people. Help us use patience to move
away from that haughtiness. Amen.
Prayer Focus: Pray
for the Florida Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, which begins
tomorrow.
Song: Patience Song –
Veggie Tales
No comments:
Post a Comment