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| “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” |
| —Ephesians 4:2 |
I am not a patient person. Ask anyone who knows me. They will attest to my decided lack of patience. And yet, I am often stopped in my tracks by someone who extends patience to me. Patience is, after all, an expression of grace.
Recently, I encountered a situation on a website that I visited that raised my hackles. I felt that the webmaster—whoever he or she happened to be—had done a very sloppy job in presenting information on what I felt was a critically important webpage. So, I reached out to someone I knew in that organization and made my opinion known.
Frankly, as I sometimes do when I’m impatient, I used hyperbole in describing the deficiencies with the website. I ranted. I raved. I poured out my strong opinion using many not-so-kind words.
The response I received knocked me back into my chair. The person wrote back the most patient, kind, even loving, note. He thanked me for my concern. But, in the most gentle possible way, he pointed out the excessiveness of my word choices and the lack of reasonableness in those portions of my complaint where I had gone “over the top.” He explained the reasons why certain choices had been made. All in all, without giving one inch of ground, he acknowledged me and my complaint in a way that made it impossible for me to feel I had not been heard.
As I stated, he did not yield any ground. He defended the choices his webmaster had made. But, he did so in such a patient manner that he truly extended great grace to me. I was taken aback by how effective his response was in diffusing my impatience. His patience became the perfect antidote for my impatience.
The Apostle Paul understood the value in learning how to extend grace at every turn. Notice what he wrote, as recorded in Ephesians 4:2:
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
As we begin a new day, let’s learn from Paul’s admonition. Let’s extend the grace of patience wherever we can along the pathway of our lives. Let’s put away impatience and strive to allow the grace of Christ to manifest itself in what we say and what we do.
