Patient Endurance, What a Concept!

Webster's Dictionary definition of the word PATIENT

1: bearing pains or trials calmly or without complaint
2: manifesting forbearance under provocation or strain
3: not hasty or impetuous
4: steadfast despite opposition, difficulty, or adversity
5: able or willing to bear


Martha's definition of the word: PATIENT

“It’s gonna hurt!"

Webster's Dictionary definition of the word: ENDURANCE

1: duration
2: the ability to withstand hardship or adversity; especially : the ability to sustain a prolonged stressful effort or activity


Martha's definition of the word: ENDURANCE

“It’s gonna take a long time!”


So my definition of the phrase “patient endurance”

“It’s gonna hurt a long time.”

Ok, vocabulary lesson over. Thank you, Merriam-Webster.



Now onto to today’s life lesson from the annals of my Bible study time.

In Second Corinthians 1:3-10, Paul describes his trials as a servant of God. He gives a very honest, no holds barred, un-sugar-coated description of what he has suffered, and goes on to describe a reason for the suffering in verse 6:

“If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance (emphasis added) of the same sufferings we suffer.”

In today’s Bible study lesson, using the Brave study written by Angela Thomas, I was asked to describe “patient endurance” (Lesson 4, Day 3, p. 98).

Most of the time when I’m asked to describe something, I automatically go into “deep think” mode and try to conjure a description from my senses and experience attempting also to give detail and analysis. (I know, I’d be a psychiatrist’s dream.)

Here’s what I wrote for my answer in the study book:

(Patient endurance is) “Acceptance of a trial; going through it with expectation that it will produce something God has purposed.”

In other words, that was my Sunday school answer.

Actually, I was thinking: “Patient endurance means going through something that’s gonna hurt, and it’s gonna hurt for a long time.”

Let me just gripe a bit and say: “I don’t like the word, patience.” I’ve heard that if you pray for it, God will send some horrible Job-like pestilence into your life to help you learn patience. That doesn’t sound too pleasant, so, I don’t pray for it too often. Before you whip out your Bible and try to correct me spiritually, let me qualify that statement and say, “I know that it’s not true.” At least in my head, I know it. It’s my heart that struggles with the notion.

Being patient is hard work. And patient endurance – Don’t get me started!

When I think about the word endurance, I picture a marathon runner “hitting the wall into the fifth mile or so. That little Biblical motivational voice in his or her head saying, “You can do this! Run the race with endurance. Run in such a way to win the prize.” All I can think is, “Oh, Paul, please be quiet!” Actually I’m thinking words a little stronger than those.

But, truly, I trust Paul as a Spiritual adviser so I’m operating on the idea that patient endurance is a good thing. And with that I ask (and bravely, if I do say so myself): if this patient endurance stuff is supposed to be good for you, how do you get it?

Paul has the answer in the text of Second Corinthians 1:6 --

“If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance (emphasis added) of the same sufferings we suffer.”

Paul says that it’s not the distress that produces patient endurance. It’s the comfort we receive in the distress that produces it.

How do we respond to this distress emotionally? Spiritually? Do we cry and scream? Or do we put on “our Sunday-go-to-meeting” big girl pants (or skirt, if you’re of the fundamental persuasion) and our happy face? And where does this comfort come from? Can it be derived from a good self-help book? Meditation? A prescription “happy pill”?

Angela Thomas says in the study:

“I don’t think God is asking us to hide our real emotions or fears. We just can’t help how our humanity responds to heartache and suffering. The physical body gasps for air when we can’t breathe just as the spiritual body gasps for grace when we are in need. Paul showed us how to be honest with our struggles and how to run to the God of all comfort with our fears.” (Brave, Lesson 4, Day 3, p. 98)

Run to God.

That seems to be the answer for everything. And it is. I know it to be true in my own life. I can’t get through a single day without running to God for something. “God, I’m angry. Help me calm down” “God, I’m tired. Can you give me some of that ‘rest for my soul’?” “God, I’m stressed out? Where is the ‘peace that passes understanding’?”

And when I go to him for refuge, He’s always there, unlike some people I know. He doesn’t always give me what I want. He does always give me what I need.

So I’m almost convinced maybe it’s not such a bad thing to pray for patient endurance.
Deeper thinking (and some prayer) helped me to see that the word ‘patient’ actually implies: “waiting with a degree of expectation” that something good is going to come. Otherwise, why be patient? Why not demand it now? Why not stomp and cry like a two-year old? If I’m patient, something is going to happen. We wouldn’t be patient for something bad to happen? “Oh, gee, I just can’t wait for that pink slip to be laid on my desk at work. But, I guess I’d better be patient.” Absurd.

And endurance seems to go hand in hand with patience. Endurance implies that we are going through something. It may mean something physically painful like an illness or affliction; something emotionally painful like a strained relationship, or even something mildly painful like a boring lecture on molecular biology. (Don’t have a clue what molecular biology is or, if it is. ‘Just a term I pulled out of thin air.)

When we endure, we have a sense that it (whatever it is) will end someday. Relief will come. We just have to be -- you guessed it -- patient. We have to endure with expectation

Paul says in Second Corinthians 1:4 that when He receives comfort from the God of all comfort, he (in turn) can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort he has received from God.

So patient endurance is not entirely about us. It’s like everything else God gives us. We are given it to share with those in need. We are to be good stewards of our “patient endurance”.

With that in mind, don’t go thinking – as tempting as it might be – that you can pray affliction on your enemies so God can give them some of that “patient endurance”!

Instead, pray that God will show you how to use your own “patient endurance” to share comfort to someone who’s in pain.

You can probably think of somebody right now who fits that bill. It might be a family member or friend going through a difficult time that you’ve been through. It may be a neighbor child crying on the sidewalk near your home. Or it could be a Facebook friend with a disturbing status update that you’ve thought of posting yourself at one time or another. Or it might be a complete stranger you see who has a troubled look on his or her face that spurs in you a twinge of empathy and compassion.

Time to whip out that experiential comfort that has produced in you patient endurance. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. It’s the thing that says, “You’re not alone. I got through it and with God’s help so can you.” Patient endurance is your testimony. Without it, you are just afflicted like those you try to help -- the proverbial ‘blind leading the blind’. It’s not the pain that qualifies us to comfort. It’s the patient endurance produced by the comfort which leads us to comfort others, giving praise and glory to God for “getting us to the other side”.

In fact, Paul begins this passage in Second Corinthians 1 by saying: “Praise (emphasis added) be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort.” (v. 3, NIV).

You don’t have to praise God because you are in pain. You praise Him because you have expectation that He will comfort you in your pain, and can use it to comfort others if you endure and finish the race.

The Thorn in my Flesh

Long time, no see. I haven't stopped writing. I've just stopped recording. Here's another installment . . .


Hello. My name is Martha, and I have a thorn in my flesh.

A thorn. Just like the apostle Paul. It’s a piercing, stinging thorn that has crippled me emotionally and left me crying out to God to remove it. I’m not sure if it’s the same thorn Paul had, but it hurts. I’ve felt it every day for as long as I can remember. The thing is I’ve never really been sure what the thorn was – what to call it; how to label it – until now.

OK. So now I get it - at least part of it. This morning, during my time with God, He showed me a clearer picture of what the thorn is. Up to now, like I said, I haven’t been able to put a name on it. I’ve just known how it’s made me feel: empty, hopeless, helpless, defeated, depressed, lonely, isolated, abandoned, frustrated, angry, envious and downright disappointed.

It’s that last word that I keyed in on this morning thanks to Proverbs 13:12: “Unrelenting disappointment leaves you heartsick. . . “ (The Message – emphasis added). So now I have one more word to describe how I feel: heartsick.

God has shown me that the thorn I suffer with and have suffered with as long as I can remember is “unrelenting disappointment.” The NIV calls it “hope deferred.” Either way, it sums up how I feel. I have an unrelenting disappointment with myself and the “me” that I am. Inside I have this longing to be a different person – one who is highly skilled, successful and deeply loved and affirmed by every one around me. Also, I want to have an ordered life that brings me peace; that satisfies my deep longings, and brings contentment to my soul. I want to be the person that has it all together, the girl everyone wants to be around. The “go to” girl.

I think I have been chasing this “phantom” my whole life. I’ve seen pieces of the “other me” in other people: “the successful career woman”, “the sought after companion”, “the much admired mother with the perfect children”; “the cherished wife”, “the woman with the lovely home”, and the “carefree traveler.” At least, I’ve seen what I thought were these women. That’s what it looks like from the outside. I know looks can be deceiving, and deceit comes from the “great deceiver” himself.

Nonetheless, these (distorted) snapshots of the “pieces” I’ve seen have reached down into my soul and stirred in me the aforementioned feelings. Inside I scream: “THAT’S WHAT I WANT.” For some reason, they are out of my grasp and my hope remains “deferred”.

And so Satan has placed in me a thorn of “unrelenting disappointment”. I haven’t been able to remove the thorn. Nothing I’ve tried has worked. A college degree hasn’t removed it. Marriage and children haven’t removed it. Friends haven’t removed it. Church work hasn’t removed it. Even losing 100 pounds hasn’t removed it. My hope remains deferred.

But does “deferred hope” mean “denied hope?” Can “unrelenting disappointment” give way to a steady flow of “continuous contentment”?

This morning an epiphany: What God has shown me is that I need to ask myself a question that He asks and answers, and only a “brave” person can accept the answer to: God asks me, “Am I enough for you?” Even if I never get past the disappointment with who I am and what I have: “Is God enough?”

What is God trying to show me through all this? What am I supposed to learn from it? How does it get me closer to being the woman God wants me to be? Surely, God doesn’t want me to carry around all those negative feelings. An answer came through my study of Angela Thomas’ Brave Bible study:

“. . . I had hoped I could choose humility through obedience to Christ. I would learn about humility from the Scriptures, apply that truth to my life, follow Jesus wholeheartedly, and therefore live as a humble woman. I still think that can happen for some people. But God in His sovereignty has allowed this longer, deeper, wider lesson about humility with my thorn.” (p. 52, Brave study workbook)

Humility. That’s what God wants me to learn. Satan has pierced me with the thorn. It remains lodged in me, stinging me, and God is using it to teach me. He knows that if I had those things I desired right now that they would lead to an arrogance and complacency in me that would make me believe I had all I needed without God.

I’m not sure if God doesn’t want to have or be those things I desire ever, or if He just doesn’t want me to have them yet. I do know that if I look back at my life, He has given me a taste of some of the things I desire, just not a “heaping helping” of them. The feeling of contentment has left as quickly as it’s come, and disappointment returns. Hope remains deferred.

Why? Because God doesn’t want me to be arrogant or complacent. He wants me to want Him. He wants me to see that He is enough – that even if I never get all those things He is enough. His grace is sufficient. Right now that stings a little. It doesn’t replace the “unrelenting disappointment” or the “deferred hope”. It is Truth, and if I can cross the canyon from where I’m at to acceptance of this truth I will be a better person. I will come closer to becoming the woman God wants me to be. And deep down, that’s all I really want.