Recently I watched a friend go through three weeks of migraines, numerous doctor’s visits and a CT scan.  Her final diagnosis was stress-induced acute migraines.

Medical research has long proven that our emotional state has a great impact on our physical body. Stress or repressed emotions are common causes of headaches, ulcers and back and neck problems. Many people who suffer from these do so because they refuse to deal with their feelings. In these cases, feelings have become a greater source of discomfort than health problems.  Why would so many of us rather get physically sick than face our emotions head on?

A cultural misconception

Emotions are not held in high esteem in today’s culture. To get called “emotional” is never a compliment.  Only a minimal level of feelings is considered appropriate in most situations and often these standards are unrealistic and repressive. Consider how often we are told that men should not cry, even though this is simply not true.

Even children are brought up with an understanding that emotions are useless. The saying “There is no use of crying over spilled milk” is a common colloquialism but ingrains the attitude that an emotional response to a negative occurrence is somehow inappropriate.

In contrast, self-control is held highly as a societal value. We’re taught that to allow oneself to feel something means being controlled by the emotion resulting in a loss of self-control. However, the opposite is true. Avoiding feelings sets us on a rat race where we become driven and controlled by the process of trying to avoid those same feelings.  It takes courage to allow ourselves to feel.

Ignoring our emotions can leave us numb and unable to feel anything. Too often, we treat our emotional health as if it is a series of controls on a CD player. There is an assumption that we can control any one emotion separately from the rest in the same way that we can individually alter the bass or treble on our stereos. However, our emotional core functions more as an overall volume control. Reigning in any one emotion means the limiting of all of our emotions. Over time, denying any one emotion such as anger or sadness can reduce our ability to experience every other emotion including as joy and contentment.

Reasons to feel

We must stop being afraid of our feelings, and instead learn to use them for all of their benefits.

• Feelings live where dreams are born and it is these dreams that fuel passion.  When we work up the courage to face our feelings, including those of fear or sadness, dreams can emerge that will actually help us work through the feelings and get past them.

• Our feelings act as a thermometer to judge whether the environment we are in is healthy for us. Knowing what we’re feeling allows for good self-care. If we are in a situation that is nerve-wrecking but we do not want to face that it makes us anxious, it is likely that the tension will only escalate. However, if we can accept that the situation makes us uncomfortable, we are then free to see how it can be altered or what questions must be resolved in order for the anxiety to diminish.

• Feelings can serve as a great resource of guidance. They allow for self- awareness that speaks to us of long forgotten desires, dreams and ambitions. Change is a common trigger that causes people to run from feeling their emotions, especially during times of big decisions, life transitions or tragedy. Because these times are filled with uncertainty, it is good to be aware of how we are feeling about the circumstances set before us. The process of working through your emotions taps into the part of you that seeks and knows truth.

• Feelings can grow our sense of self- worth. When we take the time to deal with our feelings, we are being intentional in saying “I matter!”

Once we can understand all the ways in which our feelings are good and purposeful, we can begin to stop being afraid of them. We have feelings because we were created with them. Our emotional makeup reflects God’s nature.

God created us to be holistic human beings, not one-dimensional robots who go about accomplishing one task or another. Our satisfaction and well-being are affected immensely by our emotional well-being because the emotional part of us rests at the core of how we are wired. It determines how we respond to others, as well as to the situations we find ourselves in.

We can see our emotional core reflected in God himself when we look at Christ. Jesus was both fully God and fully human. This means he was perfect but was also not afraid to feel. He wept for Jerusalem and Lazarus, angered at the disrespectful treatment of God’s temple and was overjoyed at the sight of children desiring to play with him.

God gave us our emotions, and therefore accepts us with them. He desires us to come to Him just as we are, without putting up any sort of well-composed front. God is the only one who accepts us truly as we are, without requiring anything else of us than just to be in relationship with him.

It is here that Jesus’ death was a necessary sacrifice on God’s behalf. We as broken and sinful human beings cannot be reconciled to God unless the sin that separates from Him is moved out of the way. Jesus, God’s son, both lived and sacrificed his perfect life on our behalf to take away our sin. All that is left up to us is to acknowledge that it is Christ’s gift that allows us to come to God, and to ask God to take the lead in our lives.

You can receive Christ right now by faith through prayer. Praying is simply talking to God. God knows your heart and is not so concerned with your words as He is with the attitude of your heart. Here’s a suggested prayer:

Lord Jesus, I want to know you personally. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life to you and ask you to come in as my Savior and Lord. Take control of my life. Thank you for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Make me the kind of person you want me to be.

Does this prayer express the desire of your heart? You can pray it right now, and Jesus Christ will come into your life, just as He promised.

Standard posed pictures are pretty, but you can make your wedding album into a real page-turner by sprinkling it with some unique images.

Try a little something different for your wedding photos. Almost any photographer will know to capture a picture of the ring exchange or the cake-cutting ceremony. But you can set your photographic memories apart with some additional—and unusual—ideas for your wedding-day shots.

1. Give black-and-white photos a shot of color.For your portraits, ask about sepia-tone prints, which look antique, or hand-colored black-and-whites, which can create a rich retro look.
2. Freeze-frame it.Still-life pictures can record special wedding-day details and capture a mood. The photographer can snap your dress on the hanger, your old sneakers tossed next to the wedding shoes, the bridesmaids’ bouquets resting on a table, place cards lined up, and so on.
3. Arrange special group shots. You might want to record the assembly of all your relatives, from great-grandma down to your baby niece. Or maybe you want a shot with your office buddies, your college friends—or even the people responsible for introducing the two of you. Better still, snag a (giant) group shot of the whole gang. (Have a ladder available for the photographer to stand on.)
4. Have a fun photo corner.Ask your photographer to set up a backdrop to create an open photo booth at the reception, so your guests can have portraits taken in small groups. Be sure to get two sets of these proofs—one for you to send to each guest with your thank-you notes, and one to keep. Or have the booth set up for instant photos, so that guests can take the snapshots home with them as a fun memento.
5. Lose the lineup.Assemble your friends sitting on the edge of a dock, or in clusters on the church steps—the photos will look more alive.
6. Be candid. Have your photographer (or better yet, his assistant) take additional pictures an instant before or after formal shots, and candid’s of the people waiting in the wings for their turn to say cheese. You’ll often get more natural smiles and expressions in these un posed moments.
7. Get a parting shot. Ask your photographer to get the-party’s-over pics—perhaps a final look at rose petals scattered on the grass, or a lone janitor sweeping up the now-deserted dance floor.

There are many books to tell you how to plan your wedding, but how do you plan for your marriage? If you have questions about love and how to build a love that lasts, email us. We’d love to help your marriage get started on the right foot, long before you walk down that aisle.

More love:

Be good to your marriage

Prinicples for a great marriage

~ Jim Moustakas has been being recognised as one of Australia’s top 5 photographers. Still Moments Photography is a studio located in Rockdale Sydney, Australia. They specialize in wedding photography, modelling photography, portraits / portraiture, baby photography, graduation photography and school photography.

Having such a disjointed childhood left me with a broken and incomplete sense of self-identity and little self- worth. I often felt abandoned and alone. Moving from Honduras, where there was little more than dirt to play with, to the culture of LA where money seemed to determine everything skewed my understanding of happiness and success.

Disillusioned by the broken relationships and communities around me, I quickly appropriated the world’s understanding that finding a place to belong would always be a matter of becoming someone worthy of belonging. I also learned that becoming that kind of man would require both the right possessions and activities under my belt.

Happiness appeared to be the prize at the end of a race to belong. I feared being rejected by people constantly, and felt empty on the inside, hoping that joy would come once I felt secure and in control of the relationships in my life.

It was out of this hope that I began to fill my life with endless activities and people. I’d work hard at my job to make money, spend money quickly to get involved in activities such as kayaking or billiards, and make friends at every opportunity. My plan had worked and by my early 20’s I found myself popular and successful, yet still unhappy. I was doing well financially for my age and had money to spend. I had many acquaintances and people in my life, many of whom loved me and cared for me. Yet, I still felt empty.

I remember the myriad of times I would find myself in the midst of a crowd of 40 or 50 people I knew. Many of them would be what most people consider close friends, and yet amidst them I would feel completely and utterly alone. I couldn’t seem to believe that people really welcomed me, and thus I could never trust people and found myself feeling unfulfilled and unloved.

The realization that the presence of the right people and the right things in my life wasn’t enough to fill the space inside of me was the beginning of a dark and frightening downward spiral.

I had been labeled as the good kid who got caught up with the bad crowd a lot since childhood and it was at this point in my life that I really lived up to the name. Even as I got involved in a lifestyle that included the abuse of drugs and alcohol, I didn’t feel like I could identify with the crowd that I partied with. On the other hand, I couldn’t imagine myself fitting in with my newly acquired Christian friends either.

My Christian friends seemed happy and satisfied with life but I often reduced this to a matter of their positive human relationships or circumstances. I often told myself, “Of course I’d believe in God and be thankful if I had that kind of girlfriend or this kind of job.” Religion was just part of what I considered the good life, something I could only ever strive for or dream of.

As the dark depression I had been living in continued to reign, I began to feel more and more hopeless. Then, an ex-girlfriend of mine who was a Christian invited me to church. I agreed to attend a service because I couldn’t find a reason not to. It was that day that I first heard about the fact that I was a sinner but that God loved me regardless, and had actually sent His perfect son, Jesus, to die for my sins.

I liked the idea of this God who gave up everything for me and decided that this would be a religion that might work for me. I began calling myself a Christian but I hadn’t actually begun a relationship with Jesus. After learning about God, I expected Him to fulfill my every selfish desire, and finally give me the relationships and things I thought I needed in order to feel like I belonged.

However, I spent the next year experiencing increasing heartbreak and loneliness. Everything I owned and had achieved satisfied me less and less, and I began to think that life was no longer worth living. One day I grew desperate and decided to go driving in a way that would end my pain once and for all. I took corners at twice or three times the speed limit and drove like an absolute madman. God protected me though and eventually I found myself in the parking lot of a church, crying out to the God I had met a year earlier to save me.

That day at church I confessed to God that none of it, none of what was on this earth would ever satisfy me. I now believe that God had to allow me to come to a point of absolute and utter desperation before I was willing to accept the gift of His son. I finally saw myself and my life realistically. I had lived a life where the only thing I strived for was to belong to a group of people, a life focused on selfish gain. Blinded by my greed and emptiness, I could never recognize God’s good and perfect provision of himself. God had already provided his Son and that was more than enough.

It was then that I truly accepted Jesus Christ and finally understood what my Christian friends had been trying to tell me all along. Being accepted by God wasn’t about becoming a good enough person first. I could never do that one my own. Accepting Christ’s sacrifice on my behalf, and committing my life to walk in His presence was the only thing that could restore my relationship with God.

I also learned that life was not all about me. God saved me from myself so I could be a blessing to people. I have not stopped thanking him for that ever since. I now enjoy rich relationships, a satisfying career and activities that I truly love because I know they are not the root of my joy, but only the added bonuses to the gift of belonging to the One who created me.

You can receive Christ right now by faith through prayer. Praying is simply talking to God. God knows your heart and is not so concerned with your words as He is with the attitude of your heart. Here’s a suggested prayer:

Lord Jesus, I want to know you personally. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life to you and ask you to come in as my Savior and Lord. Take control of my life. Thank you for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Make me the kind of person you want me to be.

Does this prayer express the desire of your heart? You can pray it right now, and Jesus Christ will come into your life, just as He promised.

Before the days of generalized Hallmark greetings and mass produced teddy bears holding puffy hearts, holidays used to mean something. Christmas was about the birth of Christ, New Year’s was about welcoming a New Year, and Martin Luther King Jr Day reminded us of how hard others have worked to bring about civil rights.

What do any of these holidays mean now? Is there significance to these days on which we get to skip out on our 9to5?

Do you remember the original traditions, or do they matter to you at all?

• Appreciate the things I do rather than focussing on the things I don’t do.
• Be my greatest supporter.
• Take more initiative to set up special times together.
• Accept my weaknesses and love me unconditionally.
• Allow me some time to myself.
• Express appreciation when I help you.
• Be spontaneous with hugs, kisses and saying “I love you.”
• Give me a chance to drop my briefcase, say “hi” and relax before you give me your concerns and problems.
• Cook my favourite meal
• Greet me with a smile
• Make a big deal about my birthday.
• Gently correct me in private rather than contradicting me in front of others.
• Just listen to me without assuming what I’m thinking or about to say. Don’t interrupt.

Family Life Conferences are a great way to spend time with your spouse and really grow in your relationship together. There’s one in your area. Check out the current scehdule for topics and locations in the USA.

I modeled a great deal as a teenager, but I don’t fit the mold set by the modeling industry. I am not the willow six-foot-tall blond you often see sashaying down the runway. I am 5’5″ and due to childhood illness I have been completely bald since I was nine years old.

My hair loss is due to Alopecia Areata, an auto-immune disorder for which there is no cure. The only physical side effect of the disease is hair loss, but the emotional and social impact of growing up bald is huge. I was constantly teased and tormented at school, had few friends and was told that I would never find a husband. Fearing rejection, I hid the fact that I wore a wig for fifteen years, even as an adult, even while modeling.

Changing the way I saw myself

One day my son, then only two years old approached me while I was sitting in the bed watching TV. He gently rubbed my baldhead and said, “Momma, your hair is so pretty!” As I began to quiz him it hit me that he really did think that my bald head was pretty. He didn’t see me as different than any other normal person WITH hair. What love he must have for me. He was completely at peace knowing that his mother is bald, it didn’t bother him a bit. His acceptance challenged me to change my life and I decided to start by changing the way I thought about myself.

I decided that:

1. Bald is beautiful
2. I will love myself
3. I will be confident in my abilities
4. I will have peace in knowing that I am bald

Letting other people see me

I accepted that I could live with being bald. I wanted to help others. After many nights of watching the news and seeing it full of violence in schools often brought on by low self-esteem , I knew I had found my mission. I wanted to help children understand why teasing hurts and how much damage it can do. I knew the effect teasing had on the way I saw myself growing up. I wanted to spare other kids from being made to feel worthless because of someone else’s thoughtless comments.

It was during this time that I was booked as a guest on The Learning Channel’s show “A Make-Over Story.” I was so excited! I was getting the works and it would be aired on national television with millions of viewers! I was going to get a little bit of celebrity. Then reality hit me with one simple question – was I willing to take my wig off on camera? Would I show them the real me?

I lost sleep thinking about it. The thought of going bald, and on television made me nauseous. I never even left the house without my wig. Finally, I agreed that if necessary, they could show me bald but I’d rather it be split second and not focus on me. They assured me that they probably wouldn’t even need to do it so don’t worry about it.

Showing the world the real me

The first day of filming, the producer didn’t ask me if I wanted to film bald, she simply told me we were going to. It was the best thing that could have happened because there was no time to think about it, I just did it! When it was over, I had a natural high and when I was alone with my husband later that afternoon he looked at me and said, “I’m really proud of you – that took guts. I really think this show could reach people and touch someone’s heart.” And you know, that’s all I really wanted to do.

I’ve gone through years of humiliation and low self esteem because I was different. I prayed faithfully for healing but my hair never came back. After fifteen years, I finally came to the realization that the only way God (a God who I know loves me so much) can stand by and watch all of these terrible things happen to His own child is because He knows that He has great things in store for me.

I would have given anything to have someone tell me they understood what I was going through, that it was OK to be different, that if I just hung in there and was strong I would be victorious. It would have made all the difference in the world. I could have been spared so many doubts, questions and fears. Since I didn’t have that person, I want to be that person.

I know how hard it was to grow up “different” and be a Christian and have a Savior to call on that was faithful and loving. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to go through life’s hurt and trials alone. God loves you with a love that embraces you whether you are over weight, under weight, handicapped or like in my case bald.

If you are alone or hurting, you can have personal relationship with Jesus Christ like I do. All you have to do is ask Him.

God knows your heart so it doesn’t matter which words you use, but here’s a suggested prayer:

Lord Jesus, I want to know you personally. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life to you and ask you to come in as my Saviour and Lord. Take control of my life. Thank you for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Make me the kind of woman you want me to be.

If this prayer expresses the desire of your heart, pray it right now and Christ will come into your life just as He promised. If you invited Jesus Christ into your life, thank God often that He is in your life, that He will never leave you and that you have eternal life. As you learn more about your relationship with God, and how much He loves you, you’ll experience life to the fullest.

The desire for fulfillment is universal.

You don’t have to look too far before you run into a myriad of quotes on the topic of living life to the fullest. Carpe Diem translates from the Latin into Seize the Day and appears everywhere from graduation presents to plaques. Living a full and satisfying life is at the top of our inborn priorities, and yet it seems to be a goal that is impossible to reach completely.

Insatiable by Design

It is not a matter of chance that humans not only seek to survive but actually thrive. This desire to live rather than simply exist is what separates us from animals, and it is one of the many ways in which God made human beings unique. We were created with the ability to feel emotions, and the hunger to grow and learn because we were created by God in his own image. God is the creator, source and definition of life and it is these characteristics of him that cause us to be creative and drive us to live enjoy and treasure life.

Where’s the Disconnect?

If we were created by God himself to live fulfilling lives, why do so many of us feel like we are running on empty? And why does it seem like most of the time religion hurts rather than helps the cause of a life fully lived? Though we were created by God to live lives that are rich and satisfying, they can only be made complete by a relationship with Him. The Bible says that, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

God gave us many things which are pleasurable and which he made to enjoy, but their sole purpose was only ever to point us towards him. Without this relationship, every experience is dulled by being limited to itself. It no longer satisfies its original purpose – to point us towards the Creator who imagined it.

He ingrained in our hearts the knowledge of a reality much greater than our temporal existence. When we expect to live completely fulfilling lives without God, we expect something of life that it was never designed to do.

About Jesus

A life to the fullest is a life that is characterized by being in relationship with Jesus, because he himself is the definition of life.  John 14:6 identifies Jesus as the life. It reads, “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Christ is not only the life but he is also the truth and the way in which we can have a fulfilling relationship with God the way we were designed to. We cannot pick and choose which parts of Jesus we accept and which we don’t. Just in the same way that we cannot choose to be in relationship with certain parts of any individual, we cannot live with Christ fully if we do not accept him as the truth and the way, as well as the life.

What does Truth and Way mean exactly?

Accepting Christ as the truth and the way means appropriating Christ’s ways as our own ways, and recognizing him as the source of all truth. This is not a popular choice. Instead, we naturally prefer to have control of our lives and create our own definitions of right and wrong. This is evident in the prominence of brokenness in our world resulting from our poor choices. It is these choices that the Bible defines as sin.

Sin translated from the Greek means “missing the mark.” God created us to have a full satisfying life filled with his presence. We miss the mark when we live any other way than in unity with God. However, we are unable to experience this unity because we have chosen another path rather than God’s.

Sin is not a recent phenomenon. When Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, they chose their own version of life and thus sinned. They traded in the truth of God, his perfect mark, and instead bought into a lie of independent living that could never fulfill its false promise of freedom.

As we see and experience now, this life apart from God turned out to be not life at all but instead brokenness. It is similar to that of a child who desires the freedom to run into traffic. In their eyes they are living more fully when they run freely, but the parent knows that this kind of “full living” results in death.

Romans 6:23 explains this in spiritual terns, “For the wages of sin is death.” The wage we deserve for our choice to live outside of God’s will for us is death: eternal separation from God and everything that is good. This is what is often understood as hell. However, these negative consequences affect our experience of life here on earth too, causing brokenness and in a very real sense spiritual death.

And so we have our world, a series of hit and runs, where we run freely to gain freedom, but end up paying with our entire lives. The life that Christ offers us is spiritual life. Christ’s life allows us to be re-united with God the Father who created our lives and desires to show us for what purposes he gave us these lives.  It is here that we can leave behind empty lives of striving and instead experience satisfied lives that are full of purpose and meaning.

How does Christ restore our relationship with God?

As we’ve already discussed, our attempt to independently live from God results in the natural consequence of spiritual death.  However, God desires life for us to such a great extent that he made a way through Christ for us to have that life restored.  The second half of Romans 6:23 tells us that though “the wages of sin is death, the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

John 3:16 is also another popularly quoted passage in the Bible, and it is so for a valid reason. It tells us that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Jesus Christ, God’s Son was both fully God and fully human. He was able to live a life in perfect unity with God because he lived it in perfect obedience to him. Unjustly, Christ was crucified on the cross, a perfect God sacrificed to cover the wages of sin we deserve. At the same time Christ is able to welcome us into life because he himself did not stay surrendered to death. Three days after Christ died on the cross he rose again, and was resurrected to life.

What’s my part?

Christ’s death and life means we do not have to give up our physical lives, but it does mean we must make an active choice to surrender our right to live independent lives of sin, and instead accept and welcome God’s way of life.

This requires us to confess to God that we have chosen to live apart from him, and to commit to live a life dedicated to him. It is here that can accept Jesus’ gift of having lived and died on our behalf before God, and acknowledge that this is the only way our relationship with God can be made right. He must not only be the guide (or Lord) of our lives, but also our Saviour from a spiritual death and slavery to sin.

Does this mean I’ll always be happy?

Happiness is one of the many emotions that we have been given by God and we can accept it as one of his good gifts. However, like any other emotion it is dependent on circumstances and can quickly vanish. It fades when your child becomes sick, when the career of your dreams turns out to be the world’s worst job and when you age at an ever increasing speed.

God may not guarantee us constant happiness when we begin a relationship with him, but he does promise to be an ever flowing source of joy. Joy knows and reminds us that our security is in our restored relationship with God and the eternal life he has promised us. It comes with knowing God and is based on his faithfulness.

There comes a choice:

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 holds a challenge that each of us must respond to, “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life.”

Where are you today? Are you ready to allow God to be your life?

If you are, the final step is a prayer asking God to come into your life and make you the person he wants you to be.  Prayer is just talking to God.  There is no right or wrong way to do it.  God is not concerned about the words that you choose. He cares about the state of your heart.  He hears you, the words aren’t that important. This is a suggested prayer you might want to use if you’d like to begin a relationship with God.

Jesus, I want to know you personally.  I know that I am a sinner and that nothing I could do can make up for that.  Thank you for dying in my place and paying the price for my sin.  I know that my sin doesn’t separate me from God anymore.  Thank you for forgiving me.  I know that you love me and that I will spend eternity with you.   I want you to be my Savior.   Come into my life and take control, make me the person you want me to be.

Does this prayer express the desire of your heart? If it does, pray this prayer right now, and Christ will come into your life, just as He promised.

If you have prayed this prayer today, please let us know!

This doesn’t mean our circumstances change. Our only child remains sick in the hospital, the thread our marriage hangs on continues to splinter, and the hope we’ve held on to for years fades with increasing speed. Having prayed fervently about whatever issue you are facing too many times to count, it’s easy to feel your bank of patience depleting once again. On these days, let these reminders on the nature of patience be an encouragment to you as you continue to wait.

You are not alone in the waiting.

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” – Romans 8:22- 25 (New International Version)

Waiting is a common experience. All your brothers and sisters in faith, as well as all of creation know what it is like to wait on the Lord. Consider those who have waited before you: Job, David, a myriad of Prophets. There is plenty of encouragement in the Bible concerning a need for patience and those who have excelled in it. James 5:7, Colossians 1:10-12, Psalm 40:1 and Revelations 14:12 are just a few examples of the myriad of passages about the topic.

The New Bible Dictionary defines patience as “God given restraint in the face of opposition or oppression”. Patience is only needed when there is a reason to not wait. It is only necessary in the face of opposition. This is why seeking patience is in many senses a battle. The promise we can lean on here is that patience is God given restraint. The Lord is the one who provides us with spiritual armor to go into battle. We often think of patience as mere endurance, but such logic is faulty. We are not exercising restraint on our own strength. In truth, our only responsibility is to trust that God will provide the strength to hold on, and then act accordingly to our faith in that promise.

How is this strength given us?

We receive this strength by being filled with the Spirit. As Christians, we know that the ultimate source of patience lives within us. Our role is to trust that the Holy Spirit does live within us, and ask Him for strength to persevere in whatever situation we find ourselves in. This is a provision we can claim by faith as taught us in Romans 5:1-5.

Patience as listed in Galatians 5 is often called longsuffering. The original Greek word is makrothumio, meaning “long temper”. We are to keep a long and slow temper towards God, others and ourselves. This spiritual posture calls for grace. It is grace that compels us to trust God, grace that we can extend to others when they hurt us and grace to forgive ourselves when we stumble and fall.

The experience of waiting on God reminds us that our reality as Christians is not within our apparent circumstances, but rather in the truth of Christ’s love and life in us. This gives us hope as Romans 8:28 assures us that “we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” It is not in our abilities to know the time or way in which God will work things out. Ecclesiastes 3:11 and Isaiah 55:8-9 are great reminders that these rest solely in the domain of God’s knowledge. Our role here is to trust the promise of Philippians 1:6 and wait with hope as God’s brings about to completion the good work He began in each of our lives.

What is our role in the battle?

Consider again the definition of patience as God given restraint. God allows us to access divine restraint, but it is our choice to accept it and act in willful obedience. Adam and Eve were given complete free will. They were gifted many provisions in the garden so they wouldn’t need to partake in the fruit that was forbidden. However, they chose to not exercise restraint and instead disobeyed God’s command. When we use God given restraint to wait on His will and timing, we renounce their fallen actions and step out in obedience towards God.

There is purpose in the process. Take a look at Hebrews 12:2. Waiting on God forces us to look to Him. It casts our eyes rightly to Christ as the source of our faith and the assurance of our salvation. It reminds us that Christ’s death and life is the reason we can be filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Trials cause us to persevere by deepening our knowledge of God and relying on him more intentionally. As James 1:2-4 tells us it is here that a mature and complete faith is grown.

Standing patiently when we wait on the Lord does not mean being stuck at a standstill. Consider Ephesians 6 which instructs us to “put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then.” To hold ground by remaining obedient to the Lord while waiting is not passive. Note that the word stand is repeated three times. Patience is an act of the will to claim ground for the Kingdom of God, and is rewarded richly by Him. Revelations 3:10-11 tells us of God’s care for those who persevere through the battle.
Whether we feel we lack patience to wait on God, or to continue to love those that may be hard to love, we do in actuality have access to all the patience we need. We can trust God to give us the strength to bear our circumstances and instead use the time of waiting to grow in intimacy with the Lord.

Check out this interactive online study to explore how to develop God’s patient heart in your life.
Choose Patience: Whole-Hearted Enduring