Patience / 16.11.2003
What is the meaning of the patience of Job and that of Christ and the martyrs and saints? What is this virtue that Christ talked about saying: “He who endures to the end will be saved”? Does it mean to get defeated in front of difficulties and submit for “God’s anger to pass” or does it mean something deeper? There is no doubt that the meaning is not to tolerate “annoying people” and those who irritate or harm us so that we wouldn’t confront them, because this is considered avoidance and preferring comfort over solving our problems with people. In front of the painful existence, the Lord doesn’t ask us to have calm nerves or to be careless because if you left the annoying stuff to go on its track and you didn’t correct the situations that you can fix, then you would be participating in the pervasive evil around you.
First of all, patience is to pray for the other so that God’s grace will be on him and that he repents and his situation gets better and he gets healed from his problems. There is, of course, a reformation in each one of us that requires time. The patient is he who considers that the time exists and that the amelioration of others requires grace from God. The patient person also knows that the calmness that he confronts other with is an element of the elements of the reformation, and the calmness carries a request for mercy on the other whose life became difficult. Patience is, therefore, an attitude towards God who, does not change souls of people at the instant, but waits their participation in his bestowal and their acceptance to the divine thought. This is why the writer of the psalms said: “Be still for the Lord and wait patiently for him” (Psalm 37: 7). You know that God is your helper in the tolerance of discomforts and that you need him to be able to tolerate them.
Being patient means that you are not arrogant, that you don’t hate and don’t worship yourself and that you understand the other in his pride and anger. Take this other to your heart, maybe he’d enter from it to God’s heart. Be compassionate until the end and break you heart through humbleness. Be humble not only in front of God but also in front of people. The father of all clemencies will then have mercy on you, and Jesus would embrace you to his chest and raise you during the long time that passes on you while waiting his mercy on others.
If you felt that you should blame or moralize, do that but without any shouting or arrogance or considering yourself greater than the person that have mistook. You do not need to blame and moralize all the time, but we do need to be compassionate all the time towards those that life tortured them. If you were humble, then this is a good way to correct the mistake of others, but you will not be patient except if you were liberated from the purpose which is the ego. Learn not to ask anything for yourself, and not to put conditions on the person that God gave you to help.
For you will not be patient except if you were independent and you liberated yourself from the thing that you are enduring. If someone was a master over you, then you have nothing to do with patience. You see those who do not understand and that who doesn’t have any love. You also see hypocrites. Include all of these in God’s mercy that you have inside you. And if you learned that every person is wounded and thrown on the road of life, heal his wounds, take care of him and don’t ask for anything in return or to be thanked. Be happy with all people all the time, give them condolence in their misery, embrace them, and be always honest with them.
All of this added together is patience; since it is a satisfaction to God you do everyday even if you were tired from a lot of people, these people that Christ died for.
Translated by Mark Najjar
Original Text: “الصبر” – 16.11.2003
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