Patience is a virtue
'Nobody understands what I have to put up with.' Which of us has never said or felt like that? Putting up with things is at the heart of patience. Patience, Paul insists, however, is the fruit of the Spirit: it is not simply learning to stop and count up to ten before responding to a provocation. Rather, it is something internal, the character of God himself taking over our hearts, wills and tongues.
Sometimes our patience is tried by circumstances or long-standing situations; sometimes by provocation from other people. It is the second of these that Paul has in mind here. The Greek word that he uses, makrothumia, may be translated longsuffering: 'that quality of self-restraint in the face of provocation which does not hastily retaliate or promptly punish; it is the opposite of anger, and is associated with mercy' (cf. Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words).
So patience, in this context, is to do with our relationships, and is one of the words that Paul uses to unpack the meaning of his first fruit of the Spirit, love.
The vengeful action, the cutting reply, the cynical aside, the irritable snap, even the exasperated sigh or thought - all of these speak of a lack of self-restraint, essentially a lack of love. Sometimes we may be able to understand, and make excuses for, the person who abuses, offends or puts us down. But even where there is no excuse for the provocation we are to manifest longsuffering. 'Love your enemies', Jesus told us. And 'Forgive one another', Paul wrote, 'just as in Christ God forgave you.'
In the face of the constant provocation of a nagging parent or spouse, of an insolent child, of a nit-picking manager, of a sexist colleague, of the playground bully - may we daily ask for the filling of the Spirit, to enable us to respond like Jesus. 'They called him every name in the book and he said nothing back. He suffered in silence, content to let God put things right' (1 Peter 2:23, The Message).
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