Patience that Endures: Fruit of the Spirit
I grew up in the country, the foothills of Appalachia.
We lived on a gravel road lined with corn fields for 25 yards and then giant pine trees for miles. My grandparents’ home marked the delineation between the corn fields and the pine trees.
Immediately beyond their driveway was a small hill with a slight curve. When you were sitting on their porch, this was the view. We used to sit on that porch and drink Coke out of glass bottles while snapping so many green beans we were confident our fingers would have blisters the next day.
My grandpa was a fiery old man.
He hated how fast people drove up and down the road, and he was known to stand out by the road and yell at the cars that passed by–to no avail. They never slowed down.
He was not a patient man.
They say opposites attract, and this was surely the case with my grandparents. While my grandpa was a fiery impatient man who lived life in a constant state of anger, frustration, and discontent, my grandma was the picture of calm, contentment, and patience.
It’s funny because when you’re a kid, you don’t always notice the patterns of dysfunction…or chaos… in your family.
I certainly didn’t.
We spent our lives joking about Grandpa’s behavior and wishing we could nominate my grandma for sainthood, but we never really talked about these behaviors, their consequences, etc.
Even as adults, the grandkids still look back on Grandpa’s impatience and discontentment and kind of shake our heads saying, “he was something…”
It’s only been in my adult years that I’ve really thought about the amount of patience my grandma had to have possessed to live and thrive in life with, and maybe even despite, my grandpa’s attitude and behaviors.
When I first started studying patience as it pertains to the fruit of the spirit, I immediately thought of my grandma, and as I studied even more, I knew her picture should be beside the definition in the dictionary.
Patience that Endures
Paul talks about the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. If you’ve missed the rest of this series, I’d suggest you go back and at least read the introduction and context post! You can find it here: https://kristenneighbarger.com/2023/07/05/whats-with-the-fruit-of-the-spirit-intro-context/
Paul tells the Galatians:
But the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you is divine love in all its varied expressions:
joy that overflows,
peace that subdues,
patience that endures,
kindness in action,
a life full of virtue,
faith that prevails,
gentleness of heart, and
strength of spirit.
Never set the law above these qualities, for they are meant to be limitless.
Galatians 5:22 (TPT)
The fourth quality he mentions is patience. The word Paul used here is makrothumia. Translated, this means patience, forbearance, long-suffering, and slowness in avenging wrongs. Strong’s defines this as a self-restraint that does not hastily retaliate against wrongs.
I have to constantly remind myself that this fruit of the spirit is not just a random quality we can claim to possess, but it is displayed in our actions because the fruit of the spirit is love in action.
Consequently, when we think about patience that endures (Galatians 5:22 TPT) in its original context, it looks a little different than what we traditionally think of when we think of patience.
I grew up hearing sermons and Sunday School lessons warning against ever praying for patience. For the majority of my adolescence, it was as if church leaders feared praying for patience because they claimed the only way for God to teach us patience was to assault us with plagues like we were Job during Satan’s assault on him and his faith.
Maybe there is some truth to that, but as I’ve grown older, become a little more educated, and started to understand the character of God 1000 times better, I’m convinced this is another one of those adventures in missing the point.
Now, listen, I’m not saying the patience we’ve always known and talked about in church is a bad thing–after all, it’s a virtue (or so I’ve been told for as long as I remember), but what I am saying is that there’s another layer to the concept of patience that is the layer Paul was teaching about here.
This layer is one about avoiding retaliation.
This layer is about enduring without vengeance.
This layer is about not responding hastily.
This layer is about truly living a life of love.
Patience vs. Vengeance
If I’m being completely honest with you, I have to admit that I am absolutely 100% not a vengeful person. Sometimes, I wish I had a little more of that kind of fire in me, but I just don’t. Some people are great at coming up with ways to get back at other people, they can mastermind all sorts of strategic plans, and they plan the best pranks.
I am not that person.
I never have been.
I grew up at the race track. My dad raced all sorts of dirt cars–wedge cars, late models, and modifieds. Race tracks and race car drivers can be brutal. They all seem to understand this concept of vengeance exceptionally well. Even with that as my childhood, I still can’t wrap my head around what you ever gain from getting back at someone. What does that really accomplish?
In my experience with others, it seems to me that when people seek vengeance, they do so out of either hurt or anger, and they believe that their vengeance is going to:
Make them feel better because they have hurt someone else in the same way they were hurt
Give them power in the situation
Alleviate their own pain by inflicting pain on someone else
Take something away from someone who took something away from them
Embarrass someone else in the same way they were embarrassed
I’m sure this isn’t an exhaustive list, but just looking at these few examples, what jumps out to you?
What jumps out to me about vengeance is that it always involves damaging someone else in an effort to build ourselves up.
Patience is the opposite of this.
Love in action is the opposite of this.
Here’s why:
Love never seeks to hurt someone else, to inflict pain on someone else, to take something from someone else, or to embarrass someone else.
Regardless of what they’ve done to us.
Patience that endures is an action that shows love by not seeking vengeance even when vengeance is understandable, deserved, etc.
Patience and Boundaries:
As I was studying this definition of patience, I found myself coming back over and over again to the idea of boundaries. Too often, I see people, especially church leaders/teachers, using the idea of patience for a variety of unhealthy reasons:
To guilt people into staying in toxic and destructive relationships
To keep people in a church with promises of future changes
To manipulate people into thinking a loved one will eventually change
To be clear here, this “patience” that Paul speaks about in Galatians 5:22 infers none of those things. It doesn’t infer we should continue in unhealthy relationships. It doesn’t infer we should continue attending toxic churches. It doesn’t infer we should be doormats or sit idly by while we are mistreated.
What it does infer is that we need to be cautious not to respond too hastily with vengeance or retaliation when we’ve been wronged.
Notice it doesn’t say not to respond at all.
No, the idea behind patience that endures is patience that keeps us from flying off the handle and seeking retribution, retaliation, or vengeance too hastily.
For example, my grandma could have easily flown off the handle and screamed at my grandpa every time he stood by the road and screamed at cars. She could have served him with a piece of his own medicine for embarrassing her by yelling at him in the exact same way he was yelling at everyone else.
How would that have helped, though?
It would have simply escalated the situation even more and left everyone in worse shape than they began.
A better way to deal with this might have been to speak to my grandpa about his actions and how they were affecting her, how they made her feel embarrassed, and how she would have liked for him to stop.
Would this have changed his behavior?
I can’t tell you.
I can tell you, though, that would have been an example of love in action and the patience we see mentioned here in Galatians 5.
That’s what we have to remember when we think about, teach about, and cultivate this aspect of a life lived with the guidance of the Spirit–love in action in all its various forms.
My prayer for you, friend, is that when you think about cultivating patience, you think about these things–that you focus on your own reactions to people and situations and how you can respond to them with love in action.
Reflections:
What stands out to you the most about this definition of patience?
How likely are you to seek revenge when you’ve been wronged?
Is patience something that comes naturally to you, or is it something you need to continue to work on?
