God’s Patience and Renewed Courage

ALMIGHTY GOD! all our lives long do teach us that Thou art long-suffering. We call to mind our broken vows and unfinished work, the blossoms that never brought forth fruit, the unheeded prayers of others, the teaching that never came to good, all our foolish desires and wasted passions, all the wine poured out in wrong places, all the worship given to false gods, all the hours that might have been full of preciousness, all our negligence of duty, all our backslidings and sinnings, our faintings, and failings, and fallings. Our lives do indeed teach us the long-suffering of the Lord! For if Thou lovest us—and Thou canst not be our Father without loving us—what hast Thou not endured? Thy forgotten ways, the far-off land to which we have wandered, and the foolishness thereof, the husks of the swine of which we have had to share,—Thou hast indeed been long-suffering! Forgive us, not because Thou hast suffered, but because of Thy long-suffering; not because Thou hast borne and endured, but in another, sweeter, better sense than that. They that feel not for us may have borne with us, and they that loved us not must have endured us; but when we praise Thy long-suffering, we know that it is of a love which bears and forbears, that, by-and-by, Thy child may come back again. Thine is the long-suffering of the divine patience that knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we are but dust; Thine is the Divine patience that can wait so long, and yet not grow weary; Thine is the tender pity that after so many falls, yet lifts us up; Thine is the infinite patience of which Thy Son spake, when he encouraged us in patience one with another. “How many times,” says the poor niggardliness of the human heart, “shall my brother offend against me and I forgive him?” “Yea, I say unto you until seventy-times seven,” says the boundlessly generous love Divine.

Lord God! Long-suffering! have mercy yet with us, for we shall try Thee yet. Not till our poor souls have been tempted again and again; not till our eyes are closed in their last sleep; not till those that love us shall weep their last and saltest tears for us; not till we are safe from the allurements and passions of the world; not till the mourners mourn for us; not till we come to the grave; not until the end, will our follies and failings cease. Yet, even unto the end, Thou yet wilt love us, and beyond, and for evermore.

Let the memory of this Thy love not make us careless; but rather inspire us with a divine watchfulness—a constant out-looking and guarding. Because Thou hast loved us so much, let us not try Thy love again: but let Thy love keep us from trying Thy long-suffering. Let us not presume upon it; but rather be moved by it, that we may give good heed unto our ways, and have the divine fear ever before our eyes.

Lord God! when out of patience with ourselves, as oft-times we are; when, weary of our work, we come to think that we might as well cease from it, for there seems to be no fruit of all our labour, and we cry, like that sad soul of old, “Now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers!” when the fire of life is dying down, and the ashes of the old fire threaten to put out what little there is left; when the world has no new thing to teach; when the lights of life are dim, and when the oil of life has run out; Lord God! at these times let us think of Thy long-suffering, that the burdens thrown down in dull despair we may take up again with fresh courage; that we may sing again Thy songs, and tell one another of Thy patience and long-suffering, and so comfort one another, even unto the end.

So, when the last sound shall be heard, grant that it may be the call home, and that it may be given to us all—not through our merit, but of Thy mercy; not through our endurance, but through Thy patience—at last to hear Thee cry, “Well done, good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful in a few things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”

Grant us these things; we ask them in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.—AMEN.