Stickability And Patience

Galatians 5: 22-23 –

‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, FORBEARANCE, kindness, goodness, FAITHFULNESS, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.’

We’ve got two fruit today: forbearance and faithfulness. Well, one and a half really as I’m going to cut forbearance in two, eat one half today and the other tomorrow.

But let’s start with faithfulness. What is it? Above all, faithfulness is sticking to our belief in the goodness of God no matter what. That’s trust. And that is quite challenging. In these past troublesome months when through an evil disease the world has been turned upside down, have you found moments when your faith in God has wobbled? So much pain, so much distress. Why don’t you stop it God? Are you really there?

I wonder if in Spring 1940 my Christian parents were ‘wobbling’ when their desperate prayers for World War 2 to end went unanswered. Or my great-grandparents in Spring 1915 as World War 1 ravaged the world. But they and many like them, despite the horrors, held tight to faith in Jesus and eventually saw evil overcome. They chose to be faithful, to trust.

But they had to wait: they needed the fruit of forbearance too, or patience as it’s often translated. Today’s half of the fruit is the patience exercised in bad circumstances: whether that’s a personal health problem, a pandemic, a broken relationship, hopes and dreams deferred.

We’re naturally impatient: God I want you to do this now, we beg. You should do it now, God: you know it makes sense. And we struggle with disappointment and our faith wobbles when God doesn’t do what we tell him. Ah, there we have it – we do get to ask God for anything, but we don’t get to order him how and when to do it!

Faith and patience teach us to ask, wait, trust.

Prayer – Lord of all goodness, I choose to trust in you, for today and tomorrow.