Day 31 - Patience

A quick glance across the trials of the bulk of mankind will show us that patience is not a gift. None of us has it in much abundance at all, and what we do have is hard fought for.

We fight to be patient because we know it as a virtue, we know it as a single facet of the character of Christ. It seems worth battling for.

But how is it that we think of patience as a gift or a talent to be inherited or grabbed or prayed for or dispensed? It is a fruit.

The character of Christ is not something over there which I must reach and stretch out for; it is a small something that is in here, by his grace, and is something I can grow simply by concentrating my whole life on him.