“The fruit of the spirit is love, joy,
peace, PATIENCE, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and
self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
(Galatians 5:22-23)
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| Photo Credit: Susan Lowry Hare |
Patience is
the ability to handle waiting, delays, interruptions, and problems without
whining or complaining. That’s a tough one for anyone who is human! After all,
haven’t we all gotten impatient at times when we have to wait in a check-out
line, when our food comes late in a restaurant, or when we want to talk to
someone who never seems to get off the phone?
And most people can relate to jokes about our kids crying out, “Are we
there yet?” when we’re on the road for a family vacation.
Baking/Conversation
Have a
family conversation about some of the times that it can be difficult to show
patience without the help of the Holy Spirit.
Children might think about how hard it is to wait for a birthday party
to come around, or a fun vacation, or even just waiting for dinner! And most
kids will relate to how hard it can be to wait our turn when we’re playing a
game.
Baking
provides a great opportunity to talk abut the importance of patience for good
outcomes. Consider how Chelsea at Moments a Day uses baking to teach her children about patience, and then either talk about it with your kids, or guide
them through a baking experience (try making banana bread, blueberry muffins,
or a chocolate cake) to make the lesson come to life:
Whether it’s waiting patiently while little brother has his turn stirring, or waiting that five extra minutes – that feels like forever – for the oven to get to the correct temperature, there are small opportunities one after another that require my kids to practice patience throughout the experience.
I ask questions like: What if we do not wait for everything to be stirred properly, and rushed through this step so that lumps of flour were not mixed up? What if we took the muffins out before they were cooked, and half of each muffin was still wet batter? They see through real life examples that the results of the activity would not be the same if they did not patiently do each job as it was supposed to be done.
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| Even roasting marshmallows over the fire pit can present an opportunity to talk about the benefits of patience. After all, don't we all have to demonstrate patience to wait for that perfect level of goo-iness for the ideal s'more? |
Experiment/Conversation
You might be familiar with the
Stanford Marshmallow Experiment from the 1970s, where children could choose
between one small reward (a marshmallow) immediately, or two
rewards if they were willing to wait for a period of time. You can try a version of this with your own
children to start up a conversation about waiting, patience, and delayed
gratification:
Put a favorite treat (like a gummy
bear, M&M, marshmallow, or Teddy graham) in one bowl, and a handful
of the treat in another bowl. Give your child this choice: “You can have a
treat, but you have to choose: You can have the first bowl with only one treat
in it before dinner, or you can wait and have the second bowl
with the handful of treats in it after dinner. Are you willing to
wait patiently until after dinner to have a lot more treats?”
You can follow up with a conversation:
Which did you choose? Why did you make that choice? Do you think you showed
patience, or not, with your choice? Do you think you made the best
choice? Why or why not? (I recommend making space for their own individual
opinions; they may have an interesting argument to offer!)
Coloring Page
Check out http://childrenschapel.org/biblestories/color/fruit_patiencecolornz.html for this fun coloring page!
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Parents, we
are the role models of patience for our children. How do we behave when
our order runs late at the restaurant, when we are caught up in traffic or
someone is slow to turn at a light, when the doctor is running late with her
appointments and we’re stuck in the waiting room with our kids? Our children
are watching us and taking their cues from us. Let’s be open to God’s
promptings to develop the fruit of patience in our own lives, as well.
If you missed the earlier posts on fruit of the spirit, you can find them here:
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