October 6, 2004

[Rev. Doc]

Patience

"A man's wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense."
Proverbs 19:11

Some of the littlest things in life are what test our patience most.

Pastor Don Baker relates a story of Rev. Tom Erickson: The public Library has a system called "Dial-A-Tale." Anytime a young child wants to hear a fairy tale, he can call the number and a voice comes on reading a short fairy tale to the listening young ear. However, the number is only one digit different from Rev. Tom Erickson. Because the small fingers often make a mistake, Tom gets frequent calls from a child listening for a fairy tale. After several unsuccessful attempts to explain a wrong number to the small child, Tom felt he had only one alternative. He obtained a copy of Three Little Pigs, and set it by the phone. Now, whenever a child calls, he simply reads them the tale. A beautiful illustration of yielding personal rights. he didn't, as you might have thought, change his telephone number to avoid the "invasion of his privacy."

Prayer: Ask God to help you have patience in all situations.

"Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind."
~Leonardo da Vinci.