阅读经文 

这个月早些时候，我们查看了坚定的忍耐这一美德（10月5日），这是一种卓越的忍耐。今天我们关注的是我们在处理日常生活中的问题时，在等待中所需要的更常见的耐心。也许最通常的例子是，父母和老师在等待我们变得更聪明和更有智慧时向我们显出的耐心。

令人感动的是，保罗用这种类型的耐心来描述耶稣在我们悔改并委身于祂之前的等待。这表明耶稣从未忘记我们在祂里面是有未来的。祂知道祂将赢得我们的生命；这只是时间问题。所以祂很有耐心，祂是最好的老师，即使我们坚持用自己错误的方式行事，也对我们锲而不舍。

这段经文提示我们，不要掩盖我们需要来自基督的忍耐这一事实。我们应该公开我们的罪、悔改和信心，这样耶稣对我们的忍耐就会充分地显明出来。当我们向人分享基督对我们的忍耐时，我们自己也会更有耐心，更理解那些需要“相信祂并获得永生”的尚未归信之人。

Earlier this month we looked at the virtue of steadfast endurance (Oct. 5), a sort of super-patience. Today our attention is on the more normal patience we need as we deal with waiting in everyday life. Perhaps the most common example of this is the patience that parents and teachers hopefully showed us while they were waiting for us to grow smarter and wiser.

It’s heartwarming that Paul uses this type of patience to describe Jesus’ waiting before we repent and commit our lives to him. It suggests that Jesus never lost sight of our future in him. He knew he would win us over; it was just a matter of time. So he was patient, being the best of teachers, even when we insisted on doing things our own wrong way.

This passage prompts us not to hide the patience we needed from Christ. We should be open about our sinfulness and repentance and faith so that the patience Jesus had with us will be on full display. And as we share the story of Christ’s patience with us, we will grow in patience and understanding toward others who still need to “believe in him and receive eternal life.”