Passionate Patience.
Passionate patience.
What does that even mean? I mean, who gets passionate about being patient? Says no one — but the Apostle Paul. Ha ha ha… I did a quick word study on this phrase “passionate patience” or “perseverance”, and the original word for this is ὑπομονὴ (hupomoné). I laughed when I saw one of its definitions is “cheerful endurance”. Who in the world puts cheerful and endurance as one phrase? But regardless of the humor that I believe is only funny in my head, that’s how the Apostle Paul describes our darkrooms — our cocoons and our pruning. The journey and process in which we are forged and shaped to become better than ever before. In character, in love, in joy, in everything.
I think the world right now is going through its pruning.
Whether we realize it or not, whether we like it or not, we are all forced to leave a certain rhythm that perhaps concealed various areas of our lives that needed mending. We are forced to face, maybe, the one thing we fear the most: ourselves. And if we want to be honest and look at our own humanity, we know it’s not pretty. We know that once we exit the rhythm and embrace the stillness, it gets dark really fast. We start to see that we weren’t as loving as maybe we thought we were. That we had some unresolved bitterness. That we needed to be set free from all the fear and anxiety. That we needed to shift our perspective from who we are in our eyes to who we are in Christ.
Something stirred in me when I read Romans 5:1-5, and I especially liked The Message version of it. Eugene Peterson was the one who wrote The Message and this is how he translated a part of verse 2:
Passionate patience. Passion is such a strong word. It describes a desire that is alive and hungry, as if it’s burning with a sense of expectancy that defies gravity. Passion in essence seems so contradictory to what we feel and think when we’re hemmed with troubles, when we’re pushed to a corner and hidden away in isolation. But patience, it is the art of waiting. The art of embracing the unknown, the uncertainty, the center of the tunnel where it’s the most pitch black. And this is exactly where we are right now — or at least it seems to be.
I don’t know about you, but I want this. I want to have a passionate patience as I go through the seasons. As I go through my darkrooms, my cocoons, and my pruning. I want to have perseverance, passionate patience, cheerful endurance, hupomoné — the art of waiting that is accompanied by a thirst and liveliness of hope, of things to come, of assurance that the end of the tunnel is coming, and every second is a second closer to seeing that light. Think about it, how powerful will we become if we decide to all come together, and commit into this passionate patience in the waiting and in this process?
At the end of the day, God remains unshakable and unchanging and unfailing. He is still the God that is making everything work together for the good of those who love Him. He is still that anchor for our souls, our Prince of Peace, our wonderful Counselor. His promises still stand. And maybe, just maybe, if we stick around long enough — with passionate patience — for Him to show us that He is who He says He is, we will see just that.
Fun stuff, guys. Fun stuff.
- Lev.
Something stirred in me when I read Romans 5:1-5, and I especially liked The Message version of it. Eugene Peterson was the one who wrote The Message and this is how he translated a part of verse 2:
We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us.
Passionate patience. Passion is such a strong word. It describes a desire that is alive and hungry, as if it’s burning with a sense of expectancy that defies gravity. Passion in essence seems so contradictory to what we feel and think when we’re hemmed with troubles, when we’re pushed to a corner and hidden away in isolation. But patience, it is the art of waiting. The art of embracing the unknown, the uncertainty, the center of the tunnel where it’s the most pitch black. And this is exactly where we are right now — or at least it seems to be.
I don’t know about you, but I want this. I want to have a passionate patience as I go through the seasons. As I go through my darkrooms, my cocoons, and my pruning. I want to have perseverance, passionate patience, cheerful endurance, hupomoné — the art of waiting that is accompanied by a thirst and liveliness of hope, of things to come, of assurance that the end of the tunnel is coming, and every second is a second closer to seeing that light. Think about it, how powerful will we become if we decide to all come together, and commit into this passionate patience in the waiting and in this process?
At the end of the day, God remains unshakable and unchanging and unfailing. He is still the God that is making everything work together for the good of those who love Him. He is still that anchor for our souls, our Prince of Peace, our wonderful Counselor. His promises still stand. And maybe, just maybe, if we stick around long enough — with passionate patience — for Him to show us that He is who He says He is, we will see just that.
Fun stuff, guys. Fun stuff.
- Lev.
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