when we are patient and compassionate, we are most closely and beautifully exhibiting the image in which we were made.
God's patience and compassion on a creation that constantly turns its back on the Creator challenges us not only to show compassion on those who turn their back on us, but to have patience on them, constantly reaching out to them with mercy and love, whether they return to us or not.
-dave-
2 opinion(s):
I think we all struggle with showing patience and compassion at times.
I find that I personally have a harder time displaying them to other believers. Isn't that weird? It's something that I have to constantly work on....showing patience and compassion to those that I think should already get it. Or to those who claim to know Jesus but can't seem to show his love to those who don't. Does that make sense?
Ironic that I get frustrated at others for not being able to do what I can't seem to do for them either, huh? :)
It is a struggle, but I know that if I can work at making those attributes a more natural reaction, I will be stretched and grown and hopefully get a firsthand view of what unconditional really looks like.
I just learned the other day from an amazing book (Bryan Stone's Evangelism after Christendom) that the words ("compassion" and "patience") come from the same Latin word - "pati". You can see it in various forms: passion (suffering, of course) and patience (Latin patiens). They all go to "pati" - to suffer.
Amazing...but not surprising.
Perhaps you already knew...
By the way, I got your call. I need to come volunteer one of these days...is that an option?
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