Dear Readers,
I have thought many times at the themes that keep recurring in this blog and conclude that the repetition has at least two purposes… not everyone will read each post (perhaps few do) and as each of us change daily in our level of receptiveness or even life’s ‘turns and twists’, what was not relevant one day may be very relevant the next time the same theme comes up. I thank you for your patience and interest! The following is from a talk on patience by Elder Neal A. Maxwell… see Patience (https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/maxwell-neal-a_patience/) . It is long but very relevant to each one of us. kdm
Patience helps us to use, rather than to protest, these seeming flat periods of life, becoming filled with quiet wonder over the past and with anticipation for that which may lie ahead, instead of demeaning the particular flatness through which we may be passing at the time. We should savor even the seemingly ordinary times, for life cannot be made up all of kettledrums and crashing cymbals. There must be some flutes and violins. Living cannot be all crescendo; there must be some dynamic contrast.
Clearly, without patience we will learn less in life. We will see less; we will feel less; we will hear less. Ironically, “rush” and “more” usually mean “less.” The pressure of “now,” time and time again, go against the grain of the gospel with its eternalism.
There is also in patience a greater opportunity for that discernment which sorts out the things that matter most from the things that matter least. The mealtime episode of the Savior in the home of Mary and Martha is an example. Anxious, impatient Martha focused on getting food on the table while Mary wisely chose “the good part”—companionship and conversation instead of calories—a good choice, the Savior said, which would not be taken from her.
In our approach to life, patience also helps us to realize that while we may be ready to move on, having had enough of a particular learning experience, our continued presence is often needed as a part of the learning environment of others. Patience is thus closely connected with two other central attributes of Christianity—love and humility. Paul said to the saints at Thessalonica, “Be patient toward all men”—clearly a part of keeping the second great commandment (1 Thessalonians 5:14).
The patient person assumes that what others have to say is worth listening to. A patient person is not so chronically eager to put forth his or her own ideas. In true humility, we do some waiting upon others. We value them for what they say and what they have to contribute. Patience and humility are special friends.
Since our competition in life, as Elder Boyd K. Packer has perceptively said, is solely with our old self, we ought to be free, you and I, as members of the Church, from the jealousies and anxieties of the world which go with interpersonal competition. Very importantly, it is patience, when combined with love, which permits us “in process of time” to detoxify our disappointments. Patience and love take the radioactivity out of our resentments. These are neither small nor occasional needs in most of our lives.
Further, the patient person can better understand how there are circumstances when, if our hearts are set too much upon the things of this world, they must be broken—but for our sakes, and not merely as a demonstration of divine power. But it takes real patience in such circumstances to wait for the later vindication of our trust in the Lord.
Therefore, if we use the process of time well, it can cradle us as we develop patient humility. Keats tenderly observed: “Time, that aged nurse, /Rock‘d me to patience” (John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations, 14th ed. [Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1968], p. 580). Clearly, patience so cradles us when we are in the midst of suffering. Paul, who suffered much, observed in his epistle to the Hebrews: “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby” (Hebrews 12:11).
Patience permits us to cling to our faith in the Lord when we are tossed about by suffering as if by surf. When the undertow grasps us, we will realize that even as we tumble we are somehow being carried forward; we are actually being helped even as we cry for help.
One of the functions of the tribulations of the righteous is that “tribulation worketh patience” (Romans 5:3). What a vital attribute patience is if tribulation is worth enduring to bring about its development! Patience in turn brings about the needed experience, as noted in the stunning insight the Lord gave to the Prophet Joseph Smith: “All these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good” (D&C 122:7). Perhaps one can be forgiven if, in response to this sobering insight, his soul shivers just a bit. James also stressed the importance of patience when our faith is being tried, because those grueling experiences “[work] patience,” and said, in what was almost a sigh of the soul, “Let patience have her perfect work . . .” (James 1:3-4).
To Joseph Smith, the Lord described patience as having a special finishing and concluding quality, for “These things remain to overcome through patience, that such may receive a more exceeding and eternal weight of glory”
