| The Every Day of Life |
Chapter 15 |
Page 6 |
The mothers need the lesson that they may wisely teach and train their children and not hurt their lives by impatience. All who are dealing with the young, with inexperience, all who work among the ignorant and the lost need it. Those who would put their hands in any way to other lives need a large measure of the patience of Christ. We must teach the same lessons many times over and over, and if we grow impatient we may never see any result. If we become vexed with those we are striving to help, we hinder and spoil the beauty we are seeking to produce in their lives. Nothing but patience in the Christian worker fitly represents the Master. That is the way he would work. He would never show petulance or irritability, or any lack of perfect lovingness, in dealing with even the most trying life. In no other spirit or temper can we do this work for him. They are Christ’s little ones with whom we are dealing as for himself, and we must seek to do his work for them as he would do it with those gentle hands and that gentle heart of his, if he were here.
We need Christ’s patience also in waiting, as we work for God. We are in danger, continually, in our very interest in others, of speaking inopportunely, of trying to hasten our work. Eager, loving words, must wait the true time for speaking them, else they may do harm. There are many that speak too soon to young souls, and only close the heart they sought to open. Even in our hunger we must not pluck the fruit while it is yet unripe.
How can we learn the lesson? Some of us find it very hard to be patient. Can we ever get the gentle grace into our life? Yes; Christ can teach it to us.
“He doth not fail
For thy impatience, but stands by thee still,
Patience, unfaltering,–till thou too shalt grow
Patience,–and wouldst not miss the sharpness grown
To custom, which assures him at thy side,
Hand to thy hand, and not far off in heaven.”
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