Love Is Patient

“Love is patient.”

I used to think this meant Yahweh was patient with me, as in toleration. As if He was waiting for me to finally change or get it together. Like His patience towards me had to do His restraint and an end result.

I started making sourdough bread a couple years ago. I’ve learned that there is no rushing the process. It will take a full day from start to finish. And each step is delicate, intentional, and precise. 

To taste and see the results requires patience in the present. It’s being committed not just for the final taste, but also, in each stretch, fold, and rise. It’s my hands molding and crafting out of a place of love, where I know that what I’m doing matters. My family will feast on this daily bread, so not one detail is left unnoticed.

It’s how He loves us. He is eternally holding us, looking in awe at His children. He molds us and crafts us with patience, captivated by who we are in the present and loving us deeply because we matter. Patience isn’t about him controlling His temperament or demeanor towards us, because although we may lose our patience, He doesn’t. His love isn’t conditional based on my behavior. 

It’s long-suffering, meaning He is near even

in my darkness and my mess. And it’s not even that He is waiting for me to clean up – just ask the son in Luke 15. His father runs to embrace him while he still reeks of pig filth and is dressed in rags. Patience means he takes us just as we are in our uncleanliness and declares that we are clean, giving us a ring and a robe symbolizing sonship and priesthood. The father in the parable calls for the son’s true garments to be brought to him to wear before he even has a bath.

Because patience means He clothes us in what matches our true identities even in our unawareness and unbelief. And somehow this great, scandalous love brings us back to life knowing that He never left or turned His face away. Patience means there is no separation – He stays through it all, whispering truth into every cell of our bodies so that no detail goes unnoticed. 

He’s not restraining Himself and trying to maintain control of His composure through my mistakes. No, it’s better than that. He is faithful to the end, loving me back into His arms and the truth of who I am.

And it’s through this great love and patience that we will taste, see, and know that He really is this good.