Sirach 1:23 “Those who are patient stay calm until the right moment, and then cheerfulness comes back to them. They hold back their words until the right moment; then the lips of many tell of their good sense.” This episode talks about the benefits of patience and not saying every thought that comes into your mind. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Patience Is A Virtue
Sirach 1:23 “Those who are patient stay calm until the right moment, and then cheerfulness comes back to them. They hold back their words until the right moment; then the lips of many tell of their good sense.”
Have you ever heard people say, patience is a virtue? I have heard it frequently and it is usually said when someone is struggling with patience. What is a virtue? According to my quick internet search virtue has been defined as “conformity of life and conduct with the principles of morality.” The virtues are thus the practical attitudes and habits adopted in obedience to those principles. It seems there is much discussion online whether patience is actually a virtue or not. However, most agree that it is not a virtue. The saying patience is a virtue is showing how important and good having patience is. Have you ever known someone that seemed to have an unlimited amount of patience? That was my mom.
She was the oldest of 10 children growing up and being the oldest meant that she had to help raise them. It also meant if my grandmother was sick, she needed to step in and take care of everyone until she got better. This happened one time, I forget how old she was, although I know she was still in school. My grandfather was away as he was in the Navy and my grandmother got very sick. My mom had to miss I think about 3 months of school so she could take care of the kids while my grandma was sick. You might think, after being the oldest of 10 kids, she wouldn’t want any kids, or maybe she might want one or two, but definitely not too many. You would be wrong. My parents got married wanting 12 children. Now, I can see how a Catholic couple could have 12 kids, but going into the marriage wanting that many, after having just helped raise 9 is beyond me. My husband thought I was crazy wanting four kids. My mom and dad had 11 kids.
Now, you would think after helping to raise 10 kids and then raising 11 kids of your own, you would be done with children by the time your kids were grown. You would think my mom would be kinda tired of kids at that point. Not that kids are bad. I love children. I just know how much work it is to raise children and I have no idea how hard it is to raise 11 children but I can imagine it is harder than raising 3. My mom did not take a break. When my youngest brother was in school, I’m not sure what age, she went to work at a Montessori school for 3-5 year olds. She was in her glory. She just really loves children. The reason I am telling you all of this is because my mom had so much patience. Now, I am not saying she never lost her cool, because she did, she is human after all. However, she could be faced with immensely difficult situations and stay very calm. Because we had a lot of kids growing up, we didn’t really have a lot of money. Thankfully, my dad had a very good job, however, it still wasn’t enough money most of the time because of the amount of kids they had. My mom would see that we had more bills than money, and she would stay calm. I am sure it probably stressed her out, but some people get really angry when they get stressed. She did not. She remained calm, and just called the places and set up payment plans.
I was a child that did not like to get up in the morning, which is funny to me know as I was up at 4 am this morning. However, when I was in school, I hated waking up. Often times I would not get out of bed until about the 6th time of being woken up. Yet, I can’t remember my mom yelling at me once for it. Even if I was late to the car, she was just patiently waiting for me. My siblings, not so patient, but who could blame them. I wasn’t intending this episode to be about my mom, although I am not surprised that is where the Holy Spirit took me because I have always admired my mom’s patience. I have had to develop a lot of patience over the years. Well, I guess I didn’t have to, but I chose to do that instead of being angry and frustrated all the time. Do you know that you have a choice? You can choose to develop more patience. It is not as if there is a finite amount of patience and it is not as if you either have it or you don’t. You can work on it and you can become more patient if you want to.
The verse says, “Those who are patient stay calm until the right moment, and then cheerfulness comes back to them. They hold back their words until the right moment; then the lips of many tell of their good sense.” There are two parts to this verse. The first one is “Those who are patient stay calm until the right moment, and then cheerfulness comes back to them.” This is so true. Can you picture a time when you have stayed calm in a situation? Didn’t it feel less stressful? Were you able to be happy in the difficult situation? When there is at least on person that is being patient and remaining calm, then it usually helps others to do the same. We tend to mirror other peoples emotions. This is why they say not to make a big deal when your children are little and they fall down. If you freak out, they freak out. If you remain calm, they may remain calm. The mirror our emotions, especially when they are younger.
Another reason to become more patient is because being impatient never helps a situation. It usually has the opposite effect. Have you noticed when you are in a hurry, everything goes wrong? You can’t find your shoes, your keys, your jacket, whatever it is you need. Or you walk out of the house and forget things because you were in a hurry. Also, if you are in a hurry and you are waiting on others, being impatient usually starts a fight and there definitely aren’t those cheerful feeling the verse is talking about. When we are impatient with those we are trying to get out of the house, they often get angry and then is slows us down even more. This was a big lesson that God showed me over and over again when my kids were little. If we were late, rushing the kids, nagging the kids and being frustrated with the kids, was not going to get them out of the house any faster. I had to learn to remain calm, patient, compassionate and helpful. Instead of yelling at the to get their shoes on I would place their shoes by the door, ask if they needed help putting them on, or sometimes, just put the shoes in the car for them so they could do it in the car. When I was able to be patient and remain calm, we definitely had a more cheerful car ride.
The second part of this verse says, “They hold back their words until the right moment; then the lips of many tell of their good sense.” Have you ever noticed that when we are impatient we don’t always say the nicest things? Even if they are things that need to be said, we don’t say them at the right time if we are not remaining calm. For instance, it would have been completely appropriate for my mom to sit me down when I was younger and talk with me about how important it was to get up in the mornings and how if I get to the car late, I am making everyone late. And she might have, I just don’t remember. However, yelling at me in the morning when I am half asleep and when we are trying to get out the door is not the right time. I know when I was impatient with my kids because we needed to get somewhere and we were late, I would slip into lecture mode. You have to get up earlier, I told you to make sure you had everything the night before, we are going to be late now because you can’t be bothered to hurry, and whatever else I used to say. Those were definitely not my finest hours. Although I know we all have those moments as parents. It would absolutely been appropriate after the fact, not in the moment, to talk about why we were late and what we could do differently next time. The verse doesn’t say, they hold back their words forever. It says they hold their words for the right moment. This is so important. There is a time and place to say things and learning to know when that is will serve you well.
There is a challenge that I learned about in my mentoring group. It is called the Zip It Challenge and it is based on a best selling book by Karen Ehman. You can look it up online and you will find the book. I haven’t read it but it looks really good, so I may have to get it. She said she covers eight major topics: taming our tempers, sarcasm, gossip, gracious speech, sweet and salty language, asking for forgiveness, whether to speak up or remain silent, and how God’s word can alter our words. I could use some help in all those areas. However, the zip it challenge is when you are more intentional with your words. It is where you spend the next 40 days, or 20 days, or even just one day, realizing that you don’t have to say every thought that comes into your mind. Before saying something, stop and ask yourself, does this need to be said? Will this still matter to me in 5 years? I have heard of numerous people taking this challenge it reporting it really helped their relationships, whether is was with the kids or their spouse or their parents. There are lots of things we say that just don’t really need to be said. We think we are helping our loved ones, but many times, we are just nagging or telling them something they already know. Maybe this week, we could all try to be a little more patient and a little more intentional about our words. Being patient may not be easy, but it will make you happier. Being intentional with your words is also not easy, but really worth it when you see the change in your relationships. Words are powerful. Choose them wisely.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, you are amazing and we love you. We ask that you help us grow in patience. Please help us to learn to be calm in difficult situations. Help us to be patient with our loved ones. Help us to guard our tongue and to hold back out words until the right moment. Lord, help us discern waht needs to be said and what doesn’t. Help us be more intentional with our words and to think before we speak. Lord, we are so grateful that you are always with us. We are also grateful that you are so forgiving as we mess up a lot. We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow. Have a blessed day!