One side of God that we often overlook is the patient side of God. We are too often involved in our own personal sphere of happenings we seldom look through God’s eyes, how He looks at the world, and how He looks at His children. For while the world is concerned about being on time, being most productive in the shortest amount of time, and running after lost time, God appears to be above it all, looking at the whole stretch of history and events in a single snapshot of the now.
Why do evil people prosper? Why do sinners take root? These are questions we often ask when faced with our own problems. We can, however, be the source of the problems too. So we could also ask ourselves, why in my sinfulness am I still alive? Why the second chance from God? Why does God allow evil to happen? Why does God allow me to hurt Him?
The patient side of God is the most evident expression of His Fatherliness, or Motherliness if you don’t mind. Parents often give their children space to grow. That space includes an allowance for mistakes and blunders, capacity to absorb damages and costs, and ample time for growth and learning. Humans after all are creatures of process. We take time through life in growing and learning. We make mistakes, we forget, we fall, but we learn to stand up and begin again. Our parents must have taken after God.
My own experience of sinfulness allows me to appreciate the mercy of God expressed through this patience. Despite my shortcomings and my ill will, how is it God still loves me for who I am? Is it because He sees something or someone in me that needs to grow out of its cocoon? Are the frustrations, pains, and disappointments all part of the labor pains of someone being reborn? I believe God is one who knows most His children and who has everything at His disposal to provide for them. He gives us opportunities. He gives us time. He does this even if it means He will also get hurt in the process.
God is not only Creator, not only Judge, but above all, He is revealed as Father. He has kept His hope in the goodness He has planted in each one of us.
I believe part of that hope is also wishing to see that His children show the same mercy to one another.
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