3rd Sunday of Advent
Most of us certainly won’t be remembered for our patience. Everything from a co-workers’ botched deadline to a magazine not arriving on time can get to us. It always seems worse when one thing after another happens that tries our patience.
The bad news? Trials will keep coming at us constantly. The good news? We’re in good company. The lives of many of our “parents in the faith” have been marked by traumatic events that produced endurance. Joseph was sold into slavery and imprisoned in Egypt. Moses was in the wilderness for 40 years without entering the Promised Land. All the apostles aside from John died as martyrs. Jesus, in human form, suffered and died before rising from the dead.
I think the best illustration of patience is the example of the farmer given in this passage. Witnessing farmers in the areas I’ve lived in, I’ve learned that patience and timing are everything. They, like us, can only wait until a harvest is yielded.
We can learn a lot from those whose very livelyhood depends on waiting and patience.
