Weekly Thought > Personal Growth > Tribulation Produces Patience
Select a Category:
Tribulation Produces Patience
Until I had spent several months on my back unable to move I didn't really appreciate patience. True patience reduces unhealthy stress without diminishing healthy stress. Patience brings poise to our life giving us a good pace in which we can distinguish between the important and the less-important. It gives us a tolerance for others' point of view. Patience promotes meditation.
The Scripture confirms the ancient saints' belief that patience develops character. "Tribulation brings patience and patience builds character and character brings hope." Here we see that hope is in the direct line of blessing with tribulation and patience.
Brother Lawrence said that he prayed for tribulation in order to become stronger to endure even more tribulation. He saw suffering as "God's gymnasium."
When you are an A-Type personality everything has to happen quickly. Tribulation sets its own rhythm. I have found patience to be the only antidote for frustration. Most of my frustrations have been seated in my ego. I have wanted my way. My immobility and total dependence on others have made patience so valuable in avoiding frustration.
Tribulation can either be positive or negative. The choice is yours to make and as you want it, so it will be.
I tell my friends who envy me my developing patience that if they truly want patience they should use circumstances to develop it and not pray for it. For tribulation is the modus operandi to increase our patience.
Patience, like many of our most valued qualities, is slow growing. Patience is an oak tree, not a cornstalk. Patience is available to all of us who are willing to pay the price; it is not an inherited quality that comes in the genes.
This week think about: 1) Where am I frustrated? 2) How is that developing patience? 3) What is my response to tribulation
