{"id":7234,"date":"2014-07-27T01:17:40","date_gmt":"2014-07-27T05:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/allandouglas.dougbittinger.com\/blog\/?p=7234"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:39","slug":"patience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/patience\/","title":{"rendered":"PATIENCE"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Calvin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>As our Christian lives develop, patience becomes the key to the caliber of our commitment.\u00a0 It determines the depth of our perseverance.\u00a0 It controls the quality of our thoughts and actions.\u00a0 Through patience we acquire the skills to face life’s annoying circumstances.\u00a0 Patience creates an inner tranquility that adds smoothness to life’s ruffles.\u00a0 It defeats fear through faith.\u00a0 It controls dissension with love.\u00a0 It conquers despair with determination.\u00a0 It offers hope in the midst of that which seems hopeless.\u00a0 Patience combines the energy of trust with the spirit of obedience to create a godly attitude and lifestyle.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 At no other time are we nearer the Lord’s dream for our lives than when we express patience.\u00a0 He calls us into the kind of life which requires us “to wait upon the Lord.”\u00a0 When patience is absent we often move ahead of God with devastating results.\u00a0 We hurry through life unwilling “to be still and know that He is God.”<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Our prayers quickly evaporate in selfishness and futility.\u00a0 We lose our quiet moments of unhindered worship.\u00a0 When patience is absent we lose the spiritual stamina to keep God as the focal point of our lives.\u00a0 Our thoughts focus on the trivial and our energy is wasted in meaningless pursuits.\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Without patience we run the risk of losing control of all our virtues.\u00a0 In haste we say things we do not mean.\u00a0 In moments of anxiety we do things we later regret.\u00a0 In anger we hurt those we love most.\u00a0 In restlessness we create problems for everyone with whom we share a bit of life.\u00a0 In bitterness and rage we lose the ability and the desire to forgive.\u00a0 Without patience the vision of grace escapes us.\u00a0 Our nervous energy plays havoc with our health and our only hope is for patience to save us from ourselves.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The calming effect of our own personal commitment to God is no doubt the answer to our struggle for patience.\u00a0 In Christ Jesus we experience the ingredients for a patient mentality and the prospect for an unfaltering spirituality.\u00a0 In Him alone is the peace of patience.\u00a0 May our prayer be for the “gentling” power of the Holy Spirit to be obvious in our lives at all times and in every crises.<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

     As our Christian lives develop, patience becomes the key to the caliber of our commitment.  It determines the depth of our perseverance.  It controls the quality of our thoughts and actions.  Through patience we acquire the skills to face life’s annoying circumstances.  Patience creates an inner tranquility that adds smoothness to life’s ruffles.  It … Continue reading “PATIENCE”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-7234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-matters-of-faith","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7234"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19169,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7234\/revisions\/19169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}