Patient in Spirit

“Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.”

Ecclesiastes 7:8 ESV

Growing up, I understood pride to fall into one category, vanity. To me, pride was to look in the mirror and admire your beauty, intelligence, and strength.

I’ve learned, though, that pride is a tricky thing and usually shows up in ways less subtle than staring into a mirror. One example of the subtly of pride is the belief that we know more about our lives than God does, and because of this, we disregard His timing.

C.S. Lewis wrote this concerning pride,

 “According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere flea bites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind…”  

The above scripture reads “The patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.” To be patient in spirit is to trust that God’s plan is perfect and His timing is absolute. We tend to get ahead of ourselves, trusting in our understanding of the situation which causes us to bypass the mandatory act of surrender, submission, and the wait. 

There is no guarantee given in scripture that everything in our lives will flow at a steady, uninterrupted pace. Rather, we are commanded to “Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.” Psalms 27:14

The wait, while painful and confusing, produces patience and makes room for the timing and purposes of God to happen. He has good for your life, but it comes in His timing.

Psalms 10:4 reads “The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.”

We must surrender our thoughts, plans, talents, and our lives in full to the One who holds the world in His hands. You can trust in His timing today, for He does all things well.