Run with patience

From my Friday Streams in the Desert devotional:

"Let us run with patience." Hebrews 12:1 KJV
Running "with patience" is a very difficult thing to do. The word "running" itself suggests the absence of patience, or an eagerness to reach a goal. Yet we often associate patience with lying down or standing still. We think of it as an angel who guards the bed of the disabled. Yet I do not believe that the kind of patience a disabled person may have is the hardest to achieve.

There is another kind of patience that I believe is harder to obtain--the patience that runs. Lying down during a time of grief, or being quiet after a financial setback, certainly implies great strength--the power to continue working after a setback, the power to still run with a heavy heart, and the power to perform your daily tasks with deep sorrow in your spirit. This is a Christlike thing!

Many of us could tearlessly deal with grief if only we were allowed to do so in private. Yet what is so difficult is that most of us are called to exercise our patience not in bed but in sorrows, not in restful activity but in active service--in our workplace, while shopping, and during social events--contributing to other people's joy. No other way of burying our sorrow is as difficult as this, for it is truly what is meant by running "with patience."  George Matheson