Agapē Is Patient

It was not immediately apparent to me why the Apostle would think to start his assent of the mountain with this characteristic until I realised how we use the word “patience” nowadays.  I thought about the amount of times I had heard the expression “I am losing my patience” when I was growing up or how many times I had both heard and said, “You’re trying my patience.”  The more I thought about it, the more I realised what profound effect the word “patience” had had on me during my formative years.  With disturbing ease, I was able to recall the anxiety I felt and, to a much lesser extent, still feel when someone was trying to explain something to me which I did not understand.  Whenever they had lost me in the conversation, I would have this terrible inner struggle about telling them that I did not get it because I did not want them to lose their patience with me.  Many a time when someone gave me instructions rather than seeking clarification, I would just nod like I understood.  I thought about my life struggle with instructions and it is like those demonic things which you get with self-assembly furniture.  I can guarantee you that if I start working on something like it, I will “lose my patience” with it.  Why?  Well, it is simply because I do not have any love for things like that.  Where there is no love, there is no patience but where there is love and understanding, there is an indefatigable amount of patience.

When people tell me that they are being “patient with me”, what I assume is that they actually want to beat the living daylights out of me, that they are effectively withholding their anger and thus, I should be careful not to push it too far.  Consequently, in my previous religious paradigm, the god of that world would stay his anger towards me provided that I did not push him too far.  I have not really seen that “patience” is calm endurance of hardship, provocation or delay.  It is tolerant forbearance born out of calm self-possessed waiting.  It is, in fact, core to God’s nature and is neither limited nor conditional.  It simply is a descriptor of His nature.  God is patient and this is completely different from stating that God is being patient to which He is not.  He is patient by disposition and not imposition.  When I finally realised that God was not tutting the whole time and getting impatient with me because I did not get it, that liberated me.  Despite my stupidity, He never lost His patience, never chided me and never thought about getting rid of me by replacing me with someone who would get it.

For a child, I can see how this understanding of patience is integral.  I had taught four children how to walk and not once did I lose my patience with them nor write them off and say to them, “You’re wasting my time, you’ll never get it.”  Every attempt was celebrated.  Indeed, the more they failed at walking, the more I cheered them on.  Moreover, I knew that they would walk when they were ready and not before.  All they got from me was the constant encouragement, “Yes, you can do it.  I believe in you.  I will show you how.”

It is easy to see the value of knowing that agapē is patient because it means that agapē gives us room to fail without censoring us.  It also means that we are freed to not get it and yet, not be adjudged as being stupid.  In short, it means that love is set in the context of assurance and therefore, it is rooted in the ground of no condemnation.  Patience gives us permission to fail and consequently, permission to succeed.  As we always say at The Grace Project, “If you’re not free not to do something, you’re not free to do it either.”

Q: How does the idea that God will never lose His patience with you make you feel? 

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