Love is...patient

Freedictionary.com gives the following definition:

pa·tient (pshnt)adj.

1. Bearing or enduring pain, difficulty, provocation, or annoyance with calmness.

2. Marked by or exhibiting calm endurance of pain, difficulty, provocation, or annoyance.

3. Tolerant; understanding: an unfailingly patient leader and guide.

4. Persevering; constant: With patient industry, she revived the failing business and made it thrive.

5. Capable of calmly awaiting an outcome or result; not hasty or impulsive.

6. Capable of bearing or enduring pain, difficulty, provocation, or annoyance

To me, none of these definitions sound fun. Really, they don't sound desirable at all. The first characteristic of love in this song is patience, making one thing clear: Patience = Endurance. The race of love is not easy. We are commanded to love those who have done us wrong, to love our enemies, and to first, above all else, be patient.

The word patience is found 33 times in the King James Version of the Bible. Obviously, God wants us to learn something about being patient. Being patient is hard, so does that make loving hard?

The Message Bible puts the phrase "love is patient" a different way. It says:

"Love never gives up"

So how do we endure, how do we practice patience, how do we not give up when everything around us says we should? We must turn it over to God. To Him who has all power in His Hands and who practices patient love for us every single day.

I'll be the first to admit that there are people I love dearly in my life that I sincerely don't want to be patient with. I want them to change right at this moment. I have often tried to love them so hard to try to change them. I always come back to the same conclusion; only by practicing patient love for them, and allowing God to work the miracle, can real change in a person's life happen.

So take this first characteristic seriously. Can you love someone even when you don't like who they are at the moment? Can you love someone when everything they've done to you should have broken you? Patient love does. Patient love says even though I don't like the things you've done and the things you are doing, I love you still.

Be patient.