Love is Patient
The basics for staying in love and enjoying your spouse need to be repeated and repeated. Communication is a huge factor. So we’ll begin with being patient.
Love works. It is life’s most powerful motivator and has far greater depth and meaning than most people realize. It always does what is best for others and can empower us to face the greatest of problems. We ae born with a lifelong thirst for love. Love changes our motivation for living. Relationships become meaningful with it. No marriage is successful without it.
Love is built on two pillars that best define what it is. Those pillars are patience and kindness. All other characteristics of love are extensions of these two attributes.
Love will inspire you to become a patient person. When you choose to be patient, you respond in a positive way to a long burning fuse instead of a quick temper. Rather than being restless and demanding, love helps you settle down and begin extending mercy to those around you. Patience brings an internal calm during an external storm.
No one likes to be around an impatient person. It causes you to overreact in angry, foolish and regrettable ways. The irony of anger toward a wrongful action is that it spawns new wrongs of its own. Patience will stop problems in their tracks. Patience is a deep breath. It clears the air. It stops foolishness from whipping its scorpion tail all over the room. IT IS A CHOICE TO CONTROL YOUR EMOTIONS rather than allowing your emotions to control you. It also shows discretion instead of returning evil for evil.
Anger is usually caused when the strong desire for something is mixed with disappointment or grief. It is often an emotion reaction that comes from your own selfishness, foolishness, or evil motives.
But patience will make you wise. It doesn’t rush to judgment, but listens to what the other person is saying. Patience stands in the doorway where anger is crawling to burst in.
As sure as lack of patience will turn your home into a war zone, the practice of patience will foster peace and quiet. Patience is where love meets wisdom. And every marriage needs that combination to stay healthy.
Patience gives your spouse permission to be human. Patience understands that everyone fails. When a mistake is made it chooses to give your spouse more time than they deserve to correct it. It also gives the other spouse the ability to hold on during the tough times rather than bailing out under the pressing pressure.
Few people are as hard to live with as an impatient person. “ See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another” ( I Thessalonians 5:15).
There are few of us that do patience well, and none of us do it naturally. The wise will pursue it as an essential ingredient to the marriage relationship. So the first thing you must resolve to possess is patience. Think of it as a marathon, not a sprint. But it’s a race worth running to the goal of the ultimate finish line. (My added thoughts with The Love Dare, p.p. 1-3).
Sherry