I saw a cute cartoon the other day of a large dog standing behind his bowl of food. As you scroll down the picture, all of a sudden you see a little skunk helping himself to its food. The caption reads, “It pays to be patient!” (LOL). I think, in these unique and challenging times, we all need to display patience. It is interesting, as Paul lists the natural outworking of love, he first states “Love is patient...” (1 Corinthians 13:4 NIV). I believe that quality is there by divine inspiration because God knew that, as humans, it is one of the most difficult things for us to exercise on an ongoing basis. If we are going to be “loving” in a true Biblical sense – we must strive to be patient. The Book of Proverbs reminds us, “A person’s wisdom yields patience...” (Proverbs 19:11 NIV).
Our English word patience comes from the Greek word makrothumeo, which means to literally be “long tempered” If we break that down we get two Greek words “makro” which means long and “thumeo” which means heat - long heat. So when the heat is on, even over a long period of time, we need to remain cool! We need to pray God will help us to be patient – we need to work on common sense devices to help us be patient and we need to remember how patient God is with us everyday. So in love, be patient, trust God as you journey through this time together and build people up. We all need a lift. We all need to be patient. Jell-O turned one hundred years old in 1997 and the story surrounding its inventor is truly ironic. In 1897, Pearle Wait wore several hats. He was a construction worker who dabbled in patent medicines and sold his ailment remedies door-to-door. In the midst of his tinkering, he hit on the idea of mixing fruit flavouring with granulated gelatin. His wife named it Jell-O and Wait had one more product to peddle. Unfortunately, sales were not as strong as he’d hoped, so in 1899, Pearle Wait sold his Jell-O rights to his neighbour, Orator Woodward, for $450.00. Woodward knew the value of marketing. Within just eight brief years, Wait's neighbour turned a $450.00 investment into a $1 million business. Today, not a single relative of Pearle Wait receives royalties from the 1.1 million boxes of Jell-O that are sold each day. Why??? Because Wait just could not wait! “Love is patient...” What a place to start off the week! God bless – keep in the love of Jesus – Pastor Ralph
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