Every Saturday night my kids and grandkids gather together around our table for our Sabbath Feast. We figure we’ve been doing this now for at least a decade or more. No one can remember the month or the year when we first sat down together with the intent of kicking off the Sabbath, but we all remember there were just six of us. Back then it was easy to polish up the silver for six adults, get out the heirloom crystal and china, and light the candles. I may have even ironed a tablecloth for the occasion. Now, however, with twenty-one of us, thirteen being age eleven and under, there is no talk of shining up the silver unless it is Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter. (Not to mention that I don’t have enough place settings anyway!) Nevertheless, it is still our Sabbath Feast, and it is a high point of the week for all of us.
My strategy has changed with the numbers, and of course I’m thinking about kid-friendly food. Saturday I usually mosey on over to the grocery store and see what I can find in the way of a large piece of meat. This is the Continue reading ‘Sabbath Fixin’s’
When we talk about suffering and longsuffering, we must remember that we are not alone in our experience. Far from it. Jesus Himself is a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3). We serve a longsuffering God: “But You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth” (Psalm 86:15).
We serve a God who is longsuffering toward us, and He is the source of all patience and longsuffering for us. So we look to Him for the supply. Colossians 1: 11 tells us that God strengthens us (“according to His glorious power”) for “all patience and longsuffering with joy.” This means that God doesn’t just give us the ability to endure and persevere in trials, Continue reading ‘Longsuffering with Joy’
Paul must have been thinking of the duties of mothers when he wrote these verses:
“….warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all.”
1 Thessalonians 5:14
In the well known list of the fruit of the Spirit (in Galatians 5:22-23), sandwiched between those pleasant fruits of peace and kindness, is the overlooked fruit called longsuffering. What is this fruit? What does longsuffering mean exactly? Surely it must have a nicer definition in Greek.
Longsuffering means suffering for a long time. This does not sound very appealing. But many things in this life (provocations and afflictions) require long-term suffering, discipline, and patience. And what better encouragement can there be for us than to know that God has a special fruit that is dispensed by His Holy Spirit that enables us feeble creatures to hang in there for the long haul.
Many people have griefs and injuries, chronic pain and ailments that require longsuffering. Old age suffers long. But notice in both these passages, longsuffering is surrounded with kindness: “Love suffers long and is kind” (I Cor. 13:4) and from Galatians, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness…”
When we are called to an extended time of suffering, patience works itself out in kindness. And kindness always looks out for others. So when we are suffering for a long time, we do well to turn our eyes to the needs of others. Longsuffering has a good companion in kindness. Kindness points us away from our own troubles and gets us to minister to others. And kindness always has a gang of friends along: joy, peace, goodness, faithfulness, and the rest of them. And that is good company.
So I just can’t resist popping this up for you all. (Sorry it’s so small, but that’s as big as it gets.) My husband is busy in NYC, and one of the things he busied himself with today was appearing on the “Joy Behar Show” which is airing tonight. This is part of the promotion of the documentary Collision which he was in with Christopher Hitchens (and you can buy at Amazon or Canon). I hear from someone on the set that Joy scolds him about spanking! Should be entertaining.
My oldest little girl turned five ten days ago, and among her various presents she received $5 of her very own money from my grandparents. And what did this child after my own heart want to spend this money on? A notebook, and page protectors. She was telling me about how much she loved them (using my knitting pattern notebook as an example), and I suggested she buy herself one. Elation! We went out to WalMart last night and came home with this pink prize and 25 of her very own page protectors. First thing this morning she was down to business in her pajamas, filling up the notebook. This splashy chicken is “Solanda” (I know not where that comes from, but I love it!). As for the inside artwork, the first page is a selection of Solanda’s highly decorative eggs – she does a very nice job with those eggs of hers! Can you tell that both Solanda and I are proud?
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