It is said that Hebrew is a ninth dimensional language. One word could have 9 or 10 meanings. Greek is seventh. That means it too has multiple meanings for a single word. The New Testament was written in Greek, especially the portion we are going to refer to today.
Different versions of the same verses means every translator chose to go with a different meaning. I want us to inspect the word patience in this context; a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Some call it ‘longsuffering’. Others ‘forbearance’, and others ‘an even temper’. Now some renderings, like ‘an even temper’ exclude most of the aspects of waiting. I personally believe ‘long suffering’ is closer to the original Greek word makrothymia which also means ‘long tempered’.
The word ‘patience’ is a bit limited. Long suffering could have been the Greek word that houses both patience and endurance. Endurance on the other hand is a degree higher than the former, pretty much like happiness and joy. Joy is independent of circumstances unlike happiness. It’s like an adult stage while happiness is the egg. Where happiness ends, that’s where joy begins: having no specific reason to rejoice, but to know that to rejoice is your plain continual nature.
In like manner, where patience ends, that is where endurance begins. I have written about the purpose of patience before, and it seems to deviate narrowly from that of endurance.
Abraham and Sarah were no longer under the helping ministry of patience. Patience is more like waiting. Endurance is beyond just waiting. Waiting on a promise of a child ends at about a year. A degree higher than that could be 10 years. Patience runs out when we begin complaining; when we begin doubting; when we begin contemplating.
Abram was told by God that he would not have Eliezer as his heir. Though it wasn’t direct, this was interpreted as he receiving a child — a son to be more specific, since a daughter would be married off and submit to another man.
Sarah could have been excited when the news of her receiving a child came to her ears by Abram. Though it was exciting, IT GOT WORSE the longer they lived. Sarah wasn’t getting any younger. More decades passed and still there was no child. Her body was speaking to her. It must have been long since she had had her last period. It hadn’t just been 12 months! I believe it was with that basis that Sarah laughed harder even when the news were redelivered by the angel in Genesis 18 when she was 99.
A classmate of mine said that menopause is when the ovary can no longer produce any eggs. There was no way therefore that Sarah was going to randomly force an egg out her ovaries after decades of them having signed their resignation letters and gone out of business. That was frustrating for her, and in her process of waiting, she thought maybe the heir would come by her maiden Hagar.
The village women were now mocking her; ‘Where’s the boy you said you’d have?’ ‘Did God really speak to your husband?’
Along the way, she masterminded an heir, but Ishmael wasn’t the PROMISED heir.
You see waiting is the function of the recipient basing on their own capacity, but enduring is the function of the recipient (or object), basing on the capacity of the subject. The terms for the latter, aren’t the object’s.
In Sarah’s waiting, she came up with her terms. Only the seed is significant. So she opted for another womb yet hers was the choice womb! See, she was basing on her own capacity which found her short and being unable…
Enduring is when she got her gaze off herself, and focused on the subject, who created the promise and the conditions. No wonder Hebrews says she only conceived when she believed that God who promised her was faithful (to fulfill that which He said He would).
The sole reason for the purpose of endurance is that it alone can keep you standing, when everything else gets worse. For you are not trusting in your own ability or strength to get you through a situation, but rather trusting in someone else’s (not just anybody, but He who gets you from strength to strength) — the rock that is higher than you.
The 5 virgins in Matthew 25 that didn’t carry enough oil were merely waiting. When the groom arrived, those that carried extra oil entered in with Him. They did not think their own ability would get them to the groom. The extra represents the capacity they had in the oil (Holy Spirit) to help them live holy, keep being the light of the world until the groom came.
Hebrews 12:2 says Jesus endured the cross for the joy that was set before Him. He had no capacity to stand if He had not remembered that He had seen the end —billions receiving reconciliation with God. The portion didn’t say that He ‘waited out’ the cross. His body was too beaten to handle it anymore.
Like Him, life at some point will require you out of the waiting realm and into the enduring one.
James 1:12 says ‘blessed is the man who endures temptation.’ This basically means one who’ll not trust in their ability to stand temptation but in the ‘subject’s’ which is God who gives grace in time of need.
1 Corinthians 13 says love endures all things. This is Agape (Greek for the love of God). This means if it is Eros (love of the body/romantic love), it can’t endure ALL things. It’ll endure some, and when it can’t have it, it’ll inspire the divorce.
Hosea was only able to go buy back Gomer, his wife, from prostitution, and remarry her nth times because God had told him to. Gomer represented sinful Israel, or in this case you, and Hosea represented God. That love was Agape and it endured that shameful scene. Eros can’t go that far. Hosea’s ability to pull it off wasn’t in him. The grace came with the instruction from above. Leading us to the point of the object or recipient not basing their capacity on themselves, but in God.
Only then can you endure. Only then can we sail through terrible times like Joseph.
So, gird yourself with this knowledge. The test of your faith could get worse; and more unbearable. God could have told you as well that your family would bow down to you like Joseph, and now everything is going south.
It’s Him to fulfill that promise and not you, so don’t beat yourself up trying to do Sarah moves.
The disclaimer is: Even if patience seems to be the minor theme here, it is it that will be a result of divers trials. That patience will have a perfect work in you (as James 1:4 says) leaving you wanting in nothing.
In simpler terms, if you have not mastered patience, you can’t endure. You’ll always come up with excuses to fall off the track, but remember it’s the fruit — not of you primarily, but the Holy Spirit. He’s the tree laboring in all to bud — and not you.
I pray this readies you for your next faith assignment, that you won’t throw in the towel while in the ring, but come out with your hands raised by the ref, better face messed up and bloodied, than smooth and announced loser. You were meant to either win or win. You are more than a conqueror… remember?
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