... Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath ... James 1.19
Yesterday I battled impatience and didn't do well. I knew shortly after I woke up that I was impatient, and so I prayed and asked God for help by making/giving me patience. Patience is a fruit of the Spirit; love is patient, and Jesus was patient. Then, my day continued on.
Now, what I haven't mentioned yet is that about an hour after I woke up I had planned to meet a friend for lunch. (I woke up very late yesterday.) She only had a short time to be with me, so time was of the essence in my mind. For the first time since my return to China, I awoke functioning on American time. Well, another friend was to go with me for lunch to meet my other friend. I really love both dear friends and hope to love them more. So my friend (the first one) went to meet my second friend with me. (This was their first meeting ever.)
I will spare you the sad details of what happened in the next hour. What I will tell you is this, I sinned greatly, continued to struggle with impatience, and after an hour was still walking around with my two friends without any lunch. So, my two friends and I stop on the sidewalk. I tried some to not get frustrated or speak angrily/harshly with one of my two friends, but I did and realized that I had and was experiencing my first culture clash since returning to China. We actually had a second culture clash there on the street too. It was really bad!!!
Now I must say that while all this was sadly going down that my second friend is just standing there listening, and I can tell that this friend understands exactly what is happening from my perspective. If I explained why that was so, I'd reveal my friend's identity, and I am purposefully not using names so as to show honor and grace to both friends. Well, after several minutes of no progress on the sidewalk, one friend suggests we go into this little restaurant just across the street. I decide to give up on my other lunch plans (nice long lunch in a beautiful park) so we can simply go and talk over lunch for the remaining roughly sixty minutes.
So, we go and have lunch. One friend doesn't talk much while the other friend and I talk a lot. I try at least once to engage my other friend in the conversation (been odd-man out before), but my friend says that they are praying and don't join in much if any at all of the conversation. The time passes and all three of us go to take my second friend to the bus stop so that they can return to their workplace. My first friend and I wait until the bus pulls drives away.
Shortly after the bus leaves, we turn to walk away and my first friend tells me that they are very sad and begins to cry. It breaks my heart to see my friend cry, and I try to comfort them. I try, but I don't think that I comforted this friend too much because I had already hurt them greatly! We go on an errand and then return to my friend's apartment. We talk for about three hours after returning most of which was a continuation of our talk about the cultural clash.
Three hours later, my friend and I have hugged, asked for each other's forgiveness, and had our hearts raw before one another. It is like I told this dear friend --- cultural clashes are really bad but really good too. Sometimes without a culture clash, the two parties don't go to a deeper level of true understanding of the other party and only continue to see things from their culture's eyes. They are usually brutally ugly though too; this one was especially on a spiritual and emotional level. Our mutual great amount of sin only compounded the problem too!!! BUT ... praise Papa for his ability to take what is immensely ugly and make it so unfathomingly beautiful!!!!!!!
What an awesome God I serve and hope to truly love better and more and more so that times as yesterday do not come about. Pray that my heart, mind, and tongue will be soft and grace-filled. May all of these things be upon your mind and heart too when you are tempted to sin as I did yesterday.
What an awesome God I serve and hope to truly love better and more and more so that times as yesterday do not come about. Pray that my heart, mind, and tongue will be soft and grace-filled. May all of these things be upon your mind and heart too when you are tempted to sin as I did yesterday.
Comments
By Ken Earl Johnson on Thu, 21 Jun 2007 09:39:08 GMT
You have MUCH patience, Piggums... Keep doing the work that You believe in... I think of You every day in the way that You want me to...Daddy.
By Sonjia Lou Johnson on Thu, 21 Jun 2007 09:02:56 GMT
Most excellent scripture.
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