“With tender humility and quiet patience, always demonstrate gentleness and generous love toward one another, especially toward those who may try your patience.” Ephesians 4:2
Do you ever read a scripture or see a scripture on Pinterest or somewhere and think… oh, that’s not what that says, let me go read for myself? That’s kind of where I was with the verse above. Like, I get the idea but.. really…? Did it really just say “especially toward those who may try your patience”? Ugh…
Am I the only one whose patience is “tried”… seemingly often….?
Lately, I’ve been so frustrated with people, frustrated with their actions (or lack of action) with their attitudes and how they are dealing with things (or not dealing with things). My human nature is to quickly snap, become angry and frustrated, and cut people off. Nice, right? No.
God is so faithful and patient.
One thing I really like since starting this blog is being able to go to that little search bar at the top, type in a word or scripture, and see what comes up from blogs I’ve already written. He is so faithful to remind us of lessons we’ve learned and scriptures that helped us before and so patient to remind us and teach us (yet again).
That’s what I did this weekend. What I typed was “Attitude”. *Insert rolling eyes*… That’s when I stumbled on this picture quote I posted back in December from the blog “Attitude of Christ“: “Our attitude should always be Jesus’ attitude. The Bible doesn’t say “Sometimes live like Jesus.” No, 1 John 2:6 says, “Whoever claims to live in Him must live as Jesus did.” Other translations say “Claim to abide in Him.” Our attitude at every interaction should reflect Jesus and His attitude, not our sinful, human nature.” Oh..
“As a prisoner of the Lord, I plead with you to walk holy, in a way that is suitable to your high rank, given to you in your divine calling. With tender humility and quiet patience, always demonstrate gentleness and generous love toward one another, especially toward those who may try your patience. Be faithful to guard the sweet harmony of the Holy Spirit among you in the bonds of peace, being one body and one spirit, as you were all called into the same glorious hope of divine destiny. For the Lord God is one, and so are we, for we share in one faith, one baptism, and one Father. And He is the perfect Father who leads us all, works through us all, and lives in us all!” Ephesians 4:1-6
In the above verses Paul tells us to walk holy and in a way that is suitable to our divine calling. 1 John tells us that our attitude should be like Jesus. Isn’t that our goal? To be like Him… to live like Him… to show others who He is…? We have to get to a place where we surrender our need to be right, our need to be heard, our need to be the one pointing out the wrong, and let the Holy Spirit lead. We need to trust Him. We need to trust the He knows what He is doing. We need to live like Jesus.`
Be still and know He is God. We can say this easily but do we actually do it? In that moment when people are annoying/irritating/making you angry/frustrating whatever the case may be, choose to be still AND know. Don’t just be still and stew on your feelings and thoughts and let them boil up. No, be still (stop) AND know He is God, know He will take care of you, He will take care of it. Do you trust Him to do that? Do you trust the Lord to speak to and lead people better than you think you can? Or do we think we can do it better? Trust me, it’s so freeing when you allow the Lord to handle your problems, to handle peoples attitudes, let Him have it.
My pastor talks about Sister Sandpaper. Someone who is like sandpaper and just comes and rubs up against you, maybe they say something, act a certain way, handle things differently and its just like sandpaper rubbing against you because it’s so annoying and frustrating. But, what does sandpaper do? It eventually smooths things out. I’ve thought about my pastors illustration several times recently. Would I have given my attitude to the Lord, would I have noticed how quick to be angry I was, would I have trusted Him in this way without this Sandpaper Family? I doubt it. So in the end I’m being smoothed out and molded into who God wants me to be.
Choose Jesus today. Choose to take a step back when you feel that your attitude is changing and ask the Lord to lead you. Surrender your thoughts, your ideas, your plans and pray for that person.
Amen!!!!!!!