Henry Cloud & John Townsend - Life JourneySample

Be Long-Suffering

God is long-suffering. Exodus 34:6–7 describes God as “the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.”

God is not someone who gives up on relationship easily. He goes the extra mile with sinful and imperfect people. And we are to model long-suffering in the same way. God strives with humankind. He tries his best to work it out. He does not want anyone to perish; he wants everyone to come to him and love him (see 2 Peter 3:9). And that is not a passive stance. He suffers actively and doesn’t withdraw. He is “in there” trying to fix the relationship, ready to forgive when people own their part in the problem.

Many people want to give up on a friend or spouse the minute there is a conflict or problem. But we need to strive to be like God and work through our problems. How long is too long to stick with a relationship? Usually it is longer than we think. It is past the point of pain, past the point of revenge, past the point of despair—and we continue on as God gives us the supernatural ability to love and keep seeking an answer. That is what he did for us and that is what he calls us to do.

We are to be active, going to others to work things out as best we can. But we are not to confuse “longsuffering” with passive suffering. Passive suffering is when someone’s issues hurt us and we fail to address them or do anything to try to fix the problem. That is not true longsuffering, which is laboring with someone in an active stance to make something better.