Choosing Patience

**Sit quietly, eyes closed and in silence for one minute before reading.**

“But true patience is the opposite of a passive waiting in which we let things happen and allow others to make decisions. Patience means to enter actively into the thick of life and to fully bear the suffering within and around us … It is to enter our live with open eyes, ears, and hands so that we really know what is happening. Patience is an extremely difficult discipline precisely because it counteracts our unreflective impulse to flee or to fight.”
                                Compassion by Nouwen, McNeill and Morrison

    Through this rich perspective on patience I am challenged. Patience is not just getting through something; it is choosing to actively engage life. It is not just surviving; it is choosing to live in reality.

    Patience is a choice that goes against what is natural within us. Naturally we want to scream, to yell, to control, to assert physical power. Naturally we want to ignore, pretend, just get through the day. Patience requires trust. Patience requires discomfort. Patience requires supernatural help because in and of myself I do not trust and I want to be comfortable.

    Patience requires help from the God of greatest patience and the God who choose to enter actively into the thick of life and fully bear the suffering within and around us. Patience requires Jesus and our great Helper – the Holy Spirit.

    How will you choose to enter into live fully, trusting and depending on our God who entered fully into our lives?

 
**Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.**