“Patience x 5” | Originally Published November 2, 2021
Recently, at my weekly women’s Bible study, I was listing my prayer requests on a 3×5 index card to share with another one of my prayer sisters so she’d know how to pray for me that week. That morning I had felt drained after some exhausting parenting. I was grateful to be able to rely on the Holy Spirit’s power to translate my bullet points into an understandable prayer in the heart of whichever friend would be praying for me.
“Discernment. Clarity. Endurance. Joy. Patience . . . times five.”
The last one made me chuckle to myself in the moment. As a mother to four young men and a wife to one grown man, I am the only one in my household representing Team Estrogen! (I’m pretty sure that’s why God wired me with such a strong personality, and trained me for the job by giving me older brothers.)
Back when Adam and I were dating, and the Lord was revealing to us our future together, God put two words on my heart. These two words were the only thing I heard from the Lord for an entire year.
Patience and Self-control.
As confusing as that answer had been at times of searching for God’s guidance through prayer, in hindsight it makes perfect sense. In the year of preparing my heart to start a family with Adam, God was giving me the answer I would need for decades to come.
“Heavenly Father, what do I do with this child who is so challenging and wants to write all his own rules?”
Patience and Self-control.
“But Lord, I thought you said you had this for my marriage . . .”
Patience and Self-control.
“How can I be the wife and mother you want me to be when I’m this exhausted?”
Patience and Self-control.
The part that I like the most about that answer is, “Patience and Self-control” is a part of the fruit of the Spirit.
Keyword – Spirit
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control . . ." Galatians 5:22-23
These Godly characteristics are not something we produce in ourselves, on our own. The fruit bloom in us, at the hand of the Spirit, when we are abiding in the Father, resting in the Son, and trusting the Holy Spirit to work out God’s redemption in us.
Patience is part of the fruit. I trust He will produce the fruit of patience in me, as a response to my devotion to Him. So when I’m asking God for patience times five, He and I have an understanding.
Yes, sometimes my prayer for patience to be multiplied is referring to my need for a watermelon size portion of this particular fruit, in order to calmly keep up with four rowdy boys. (And when I say rowdy, I mean ROWDY!)
But more than it being a cry out to the Lord for an increased quantity of patience, I desire the quality of His fruit in me to be multiplied . . . times five.
I want my people to benefit from the Spirit’s fruit in my life.
I want to nourish and cultivate a one-on-one relationship with every family member of mine, sweetened by the Spirit’s fruit, not my own. My self-determined, self-striving efforts to improve any of my relationships on my own will only result in a worn-out wife and meltdown mom.
I must constantly be present with the Lord so that His gifts, His fruit, will be defining my character.
Holy Spirit, remind me of your flourishing fruit that doesn’t require my own worn-out effort, but blossoms out of my intimacy with you! Produce in me:
love 🍓
joy 🍇
peace 🍑
patience 🍉
kindness 🍍
goodness 🍊
faithfulness 🍋
gentleness 🍐
& self-control 🍎. . . x 5!
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Great insight!