MEDITATION:
Written by David Jeremiah, a contemporary Christian pastor and author. This is an excerpt from his book “What To Do When You Don’t Know What To Do.”
“Patience” is not a passive term but an active one. It is not a resignation to whatever happens but a strong and tough resolution in the midst of very adverse circumstances. It would be better translated as “steadfastness,” “perseverance,” or “brave endurance.” Trials in the lives of believers refine their faith so that the false is stripped away and the genuine faith that continues to trust God can develop victorious positive endurance. William Barclay points out that the endurance of the early Christians was not a passive quality: “It is not simply the ability to bear things; it is the ability to turn them to greatness and glory. The thing which amazed the heathen in the centuries of persecution was that the martyrs did not die grimly; they died singing.”
Without durability in trials, believers have not yet fully matured. We are to persevere in our trials so that the work that God has begun in us may be brought to completion. It is possible for Christians to be fully grown or mature in most areas in life but be missing this ingredient of steadfastness in trials. Until this has been experienced , they are not yet complete.
PRAYER:
From The Mozarabic Rite, a liturgical rite of the Latin Church once used generally in the Iberian Peninsula (Hispania), in what is now Spain and Portugal. Developed during Visigoth (Arian Christian) rule of the Iberian peninsula in the 500s AD.
It is good for us to hold on to you, O Lord,
but increase in us our desire for your good,
that our hope in you may not be shaken
by any wavering of faith,
but may endure in steadfastness of love.
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