God's Patience With Us

Before we are ever asked to be patient with others, we are shown how patient God has been with us. Peter is answering those who mock God's apparent slowness to act, and his reply reframes the whole thing: what looks like divine delay is in fact divine patience. The Lord is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish. God's slowness is not indifference or weakness; it is mercy, holding the door open, giving room for repentance.

This should both humble us and shape us. Humble us, because every one of us is a living monument to God's patience, He bore with our wandering, waited through our resistance, did not give up on us when He had every right to. And shape us, because the patience we have received is the patience we are now to extend. How can we, who have been borne with so long, be short-tempered with others who are slow to change? The longsuffering of God toward us is the school in which we learn longsuffering toward others.

Remember today how patient God has been with you. Then pass that patience on.