Patience: the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset
Experiencing and practicing the slow verbs takes effort and a certain kind of commitment. To rest, or pause, or meander, or linger takes effort—mentally and physically. We might be able to slow the pace of our gait, but to quiet our minds is another challenge altogether. I am learning how to embrace silence and to acknowledge the presence of the Triune God—Father, Son, and Spirit. This practice helps me when I start to feel rushed or anxious to purposefully turn my focus away from the craziness and to the presence of God.
Wherever we are, God is with us.
Slow Down
Slowing down mentally can help us to get out of our heads, to observe our surroundings, and to embrace the moment.
Observation takes patience.
I am sitting at a desk that overlooks a pond and I happened to catch a glimpse of two turtles flapping and flopping their way across the water. I actually stopped typing to watch (just in case you wondered), and within a few seconds a Sandhill Crane wearing a bright red crown pranced by just outside the window!
We miss so much beauty in our hurried lives.
Slowing down and exercising patience is an act of faith. Jesus is known for encouraging a one-day-at-a-time approach to life, a yielding, a release of control. He reassures us that he has our backs—turtles, Sandhill Cranes, and grassy fields serve to remind us that, in a very personal way, he loves and takes care of us even more.
Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
Slowing down also frees us up to observe, to really see people as people rather than as a means to an end or an obstacle to our intended goals.
Today’s on-demand cultural narrative preferences entitlement and mandates aggression. Jesus challenges this sense of privilege and turns it on its head.
You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, had over your coat as well (Matt 5:38–40)
Jesus, in his words and by his example, spurred kindness, generosity, and compassion. He encouraged the kind of self-awareness that leads to selflessness and selflessness requires patience.
Stay Under
The Greek definition for patience adds dimension and means to stay under and to endure. Ultimately, patience is achieved by placing ourselves under the Lordship of Jesus—yielding our will, our way, our agenda to his authority. Exercising patience is one way to express our trust in God. He leaves us reminders of his care everywhere!
If you’ve been patient enough to get to the end of this post, thank you for practicing the slow verbs! Here’s three ways to slow down:
Slow down mentally, purposefully turn your focus away from the craziness and to the presence of God.
Slow down and take a day-at-a-time approach to life.
Slow down and see the people around you as people—exercise kindness, compassion, selflessness.
