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Hey everybody! We are continuing our Lent series, exploring the prayer of St. Ephrem. In the previous episodes (Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four) we explored the “take from me” segments of this prayer. The next few episodes are the ones I have been dreading, because frankly, I do not know anything about these virtues. So, I am coming today not as a teacher, but as a fellow pilgrim. And these are some of the things I am seeing on this journey. Last week, we look at chastity and humility. This week we will look at patience and love.
The Lenten Prayer of Saint Ephrem
O Lord and Master of my life!
Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust for power, and idle talk.
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love to Your servant.
Yes, O Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my brother; For You are blessed unto ages of ages. Amen.
Patience (Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible). Ability to take a great deal of punishment from evil people or circumstances without losing one’s temper, without becoming irritated and angry, or without taking vengeance. It includes the capacity to bear pain or trials without complaint, the ability to forbear under severe provocation, and the self control which keeps one from acting rashly even though suffering opposition or adversity.
I am asking God for patience: Help me stop wishing everyone else would hurry up.
Love: Thomas Hopkins, Lenten Spring
Matthew 25:31-46
- I was hungry
- I was thirsty
- I was a stranger
- I was naked
- I was sick
- I was in prison
“And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’” (Matthew 25:40, ESV)
- Learning to embrace God in the delays.
- Learning to embrace God in the weakness and brokeness all around us
- Learning to embrace the God who comes to me in difficult times and in difficult people.
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.” (1 John 4:7–21, ESV)
PRAYER: May God, by the Holy Spirit, give us this kind of love, through Jesus Christ.
Amen.
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I am among the more than two dozen missionaries supported by the Foursquare Missions International Global Missions Fund. To support our global missions efforts, visit The Global Missions Fund.
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Debbie and I serve as the FMI Global Associate Director for MENACA and Europe. We focus on cultivating disciples, leaders, and church planting movements.
