lent 16 patience

I got a bit cross yesterday.  With a bunch of three year olds who wouldnt sit down or behave or listen or do what they were told.   It's an occupational hazard of being a Jo Jingles teacher - I spend my days entertaining and educating very small people and some days they are harder work than others.  But I very rarely lose my cool with them.   Yesterday I was in a nursery and the nursery staff, who are usually very attentive and join in with the class and keep the kids in line, were busy doing other things.   The class is a mix of very young, mostly boys, mostly only children with a couple of non- english speaking ones and a couple who could talk for the Olympics and never shut up!   So its a bit of a challenge and I have to confess that yesterday I had a sore head and I was tired and I just wasnt feeling like dealing with them.  So I got cross.   Just a bit cross.  But nevertheless.    I should have handled it better no doubt.

Patience is a virtue.

Why is that?  Why do we value patience and expect ourselves and others to exercise it at all times?  Is patience a virtue all over the world or is that just a particularly British thing?  We Brits are well known for being good at waiting in queues and coping in a crisis and all that stuff - so maybe its a cultural thing.  But we are certainly brought up to believe that ' everything comes to he who waits' and that its polite to let others go first and to wait your turn.  We are encouraged to be patient from a very young age.

What does the Bible say about patience?

Well for a start we are told that God is patient with us..

2 Peter 3:9

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

And then we are encouraged to be patient as we wait for Jesus to return and for our salvation to reach its completion in heaven  

James 5:7 

Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains.

Next we are told to be patient in our sufferings - easier said than done.   And we are also told that love is patient and kind  

1 Corinthians 13:4    Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant

In fact the Bible is littered with verses telling us to be patient - so it is clearly important and something we should aspire to.   Why?

Well, maybe it has something to do with me decreasing so that He can increase.  Every time I lose my patience  ( in effect when I lose my temper) I am demonstrating my annoyance that something or someone has interrupted the way I wanted things to be.  Or my pride is being ruffled because I'm not being considered/ Im being made to wait/ Im not being heard or served or attended to.   Its all about ME.  I reckon patient people are the ones who have learned to put themselves much further down the pile than I have , as yet, managed to do.     When I shout at the incredibly slow driver in front of me who has pulled in to the side because another car is approaching what am I cross about?  That my journey has been held up for all of a minute?   Is my journey really so important?  And is the person in front of me not entitled to drive in a way which makes them feel safe?  

I happen to believe that 99 % of the daily annoyances which test our patience are allowed by God so that He can show us how selfish and unreasonable we still are and how far we have still to go before we are holy.    Hey ho.    Wonder how many times I will shout at my kids today  :)