Let us suffer long!
"You may be confronting a person who is irritating by his conduct - by what he says or by what he does. Well, says the Apostle, just hold out, do not give way to that desire to demolish him or to smash him or to humiliate him. Hold on, be long-suffering, do not give way to passion. In the Bible long-suffering is attributed to God Himself. If God were not long-suffering not one of us would still be alive, not one of us would be a Christian. If God were not long-suffering there would be no Christianity at all. Long-suffering is His attitude towards us, so let it be our attitude toward one another. We have to suffer ourselves, and others have to suffer us. Let us suffer long!...A person tempts you to engage in a wrong attitude or action. Hold yourself up against the temptation. Put up with it; bear it; endure it; suffer it. All these things are difficult, are they not? Yes, but we are called to such a glorious life that it is of necessity difficult. Thank God it is! Others may not understand things as we do, or they may not be doing things in the way that we would like them to be done. Do not retaliate at once; as one who is concerned about the preservation of unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, bear with them and try to understand them. A person may be irritable because he has been having a very trying time, or he may not be well physically. Perhaps he has not had advantages and opportunities in life, perhaps his brain power is not what it should be, perhaps he has not had your opportunity of hearing these particular truths expounded. Make every excuse you can for this other person . . . Try above everything else to win him to your position if you are convinced that you are right. Do not merely try to score over him, do not strike him, do not dismiss him, do not be contemptuous of him, do not be impatient with him. We must be patient with one another...If you love people you will be longsuffering and forbearing toward them because you will have their interests at heart. You will not be so much concerned to show that you are right and they are wrong. You will be anxious they should be as right as well as yourself. You love them and you are interested in them, and you are concerned about them, and because of that you are patient with him. If you love a child you will be patient with him. He may ask you the same question a thousand times but you will still go on answering patiently. You do something and the child says, 'Do it again,' and you do it again and again, and you go on until you are almost exhausted. You even enjoy doing so, though you are almost collapsing physically. It is because you love the little child. He does not know, he does not understand . . . You have to come down to his level, to put on the apron, to get on your knees, to be one with him. And if you love him you do so readily and gladly."Martyn Lloyd Jones on Ephesians 4