Don’t Pray for Patience? Are You Sure?

By Brother R. Michel Lankford
 
Part of the feast of Unleavened Bread is about progressively ejecting and removing false teachings and bad ideas out of our thoughts and attitudes and out frame of mind. So I thought that this was pretty timely.As I was cleaning the bathroom floor Preparing for Shabbat, this stream of thought suddenly hit me. As Christians we often joke among one another that we should never pray for patience, because it is believed that most often the Almighty God will allow us to go through trial and suffering in order to build patience in us. So we tell one another not to pray for patients. In keeping with the feast of unleavened bread, and getting the leaven of sin and false teaching out of our lives, I believe that God was trying to get me to cooperate with Him and get that faulty idea out of my head. Here's what I mean:
 

• Yahweh Almighty God IS LOVE (1 John 4:8), right?

• One of the very first characteristics of Godly Love is PATIENCE (1 Corinthians 13:4).

• Yahweh's promises were given to us through Jesus Christ with the explicit purpose that we would become partakers of the Divine Nature and escape the sinful passions that are so common in the world (2 Peter 1:3-8). Please notice that later in the same passage, we are given a guarantee of receiving a rich welcome into heaven if we cooperate with God and diligently developed these godly characteristics (2 Peter 1:8, 10-11).

• In another part of the Scriptures, we are told that part of the reason that God granted the fivefold ministry giftings, was to help the body of believers to reach the fullness of the character and attitudes of Messiah. (Ephesians 4:11-14).

• So, in the light of all the Scriptures, putting all things together, what are we really rejecting when we refuse to pray for patience, and we advise other believers not to ask God to develop patience in them?

• In so doing aren't we teaching believers to avoid praying that they will be transformed by God's Love, which includes patience?

• When we teach believers not to pray for patience, aren't we also  inadvertently teaching them to avoid praying that they will be changed into the very character of Jesus Christ? In so doing, aren't we failing a key component for which God called us into ministry in the first place?

• When we refuse to pray for patience or any other aspect of godly love, aren't we really resisting the opportunity to become transformed into the character and nature of Jesus Christ?

• When we refuse to pray for patience and advise others to do the same because of the challenges, the struggles, or the trials that it may bring, are we not really teaching ourselves and others to value our own comforts well ahead of godly character? I wonder what we are really giving up when we take such an approach.

Knowing that God Is Love and He loves us; remembering the great links that Yeshua the Messiah went through to secure our adoption as God's children, we should never be afraid to boldly ask for and seek for patience, or indeed any other godly characteristics, because the rewards that come with godly character are both incalculable and eternal. What we pray for, and what we refuse to pray for is often a great indicator of what we value, and is also an indicator of our growth and maturity as Christians. It's just food for thought.
Shabbat Shalom,
Brother Michel Lankford