But for a surprising reason…
As I begin typing this post, I’ve been waiting on hold 2 hours and 12 minutes for help from Frontier Internet’s “Premium Tech Pro,” which costs an additional $10. That’s in addition to having waited another 9.5 hours dealing with their “tech support,” and having made 10 previous calls. Am I frustrated? Of course, but I gained a tremendous life lesson. No, not to avoid Frontier, but that may happen. I’ve learned to not ask God for patience. I did ask for that, repeatedly, over two days. 6 dropped calls. Inaccurate information given by self-proclaimed “internet experts.” Messing up my internet connections. A simple beginning here, we switched internet from Spectrum to the new combo of Verizon/Frontier. Better speeds, they said. More bandwidth, they said. But our fairly new printer, which worked fine before, can’t connect to the net, so I can’t print. An easy task, they said. They lied.
I tried to keep aggravation out of my voice, so I asked God for patience in dealing with incompetent people and wasted time. His response wasn’t the cliched “I give you hard times to build patience,” but he seemed to whisper, “You already have all the patience you need. That comes with the Spirit I already gave you: patience is in that package plan. You just need to choose to use the patience you have with the Spirit.”
The proverbial lightning bolt from heaven, and it’s changing my life. My first book back in 1995, Deep Down, focused on nurturing the fruit of the Spirit, but I missed this concept of choosing to use the fruit. Glad I’m still capable of learning about him. Think with me on this, and please read Galatians 5:16-25 for the context, but verses 22 and 23 give the heart, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Fruit: singular, with nine facets. We have those. All of them. If we have the Spirit. Paul the apostle said so. But do we practice them as we should? Not likely. The key though, from that lightning bolt, I need to intentionally choose to use the tools I have available to me.
Maybe we’d all benefit by memorizing those nine so we can determine which to use in various situations. “God, how can I best express sacrificial love here?” Then, we choose to act to demonstrate that trait. Make sense? By the way, Frontier’s hold mantra begins, “Thank you for your patience.” But that wasn’t mine, but God’s. I just borrowed his. I suspect the tech, if I ever get one, will appreciate this. Now, over 4 hours, and counting.
PS Used copies of Deep Down are on Amazon, I have some new ones. Just $10, including shipping. 😊
Kick Starting the Application
How often do you consciously think of the facets of the fruit of the Spirit when you face trying situations? How can you make more choices to express the fruit you’ve been given?