Pleasant Stone Devotional Meditation: November 13

“But I trusted in thee, O Lord; I said, Thou art my God. My times are in thy hand” ~ Psalm 31:14, 15a

Have you ever considered that patience is a consistent display of love? And that impatience is a display of unlove?

Do you agree that impatience is lack of love? A lack of love toward others or excess of love toward ourselves. Either way, it comes out in impatience. In tapping fingers. In heavy sighs. In cross words. In pacing the floor. In clock-watching. In inattention to other people’s conversation. In more concern for ourselves than anyone else at one time in particular. Coldness begins when impatience becomes an attitude of life.

The “many-colored stone” above has a streak of crimson through it, if we look closely. “But I trusted in thee, O Lord; I said, Thou art my God.”

If I [Eugenia Price, the author] have the right to call the Christ of the Cross, mine, do I also have the right to pace the floor if I’m kept waiting? To dart quick apparently casual looks at the door in full view of a lingering guest because my own blood pressure is mounting? If my times are really in His hand, wouldn’t it be more Christ-like for me to be perfectly honest and excuse myself, thereby showing only the necessity to be excused in order to get on with the next thing, instead of impatience?

If I really trust in the One who took time to hang on a Cross in order to give me eternal life, am I blind to the blood-red thread of color in this odd little “pleasant stone” verse? The next time I feel my own nerves tense with impatience, I will remember that the pain I feel and the pain I inflict are in His heart too. The heart that loved me enough to break for me on a Cross.

“In all our afflictions, he is afflicted.”