The fourth characteristic that the fruit of the Spirit exhibits is Longsuffering. Now this is a characteristic that somewhat confused me. What exactly does it mean to be Longsuffering? I started in the dictionary: Webster's says - "patiently enduring lasting offense or hardship". Okay is that all? I turned next to the concordance for the meaning of the Greek word used which was makrothymia. This means: "Patience, forbearance, longsuffering". Which explains why many translations, like the NIV, list Patience instead of Longsuffering. Still it didn't really satisfy me. I turned next to a word study to see how this attribute was mentioned in the Bible and how often. It wasn't as straightforward as my word study on Peace was.
When I looked up Longsuffering I found the verse I used in the picture above. "The Lord is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression..." The King James says "longsuffering", but most other translations say "slow to anger". The Hebrew says "slow to anger" as well. So I began making a list of the the words that described God's Longsuffering : having compassion, patience, being slow to anger, showing perseverance, and having loving kindness. Now I began to get a clearer picture of this characteristic. It would be easy to quickly say that Longsuffering just means patience, but that wouldn't give a full sense of this characteristic of God.
This word is mostly used in connection with God's relationship with His Creation. For instance the prophet urges people: "rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness..." (Joel 2:13 KJV). In the New Testament it is the same. The patience or Longsuffering of God is shown toward us: "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9 KJV). Paul put forth this question in one of his letters: "or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?" (Romans 2:4 NIV) When I read these and other verses I saw a bit clearer what the Longsuffering of God was.
In His loving kindness, He shows patience to all of us as a loving Father shows to His children. Picture a father, standing talking to another adult, with a child tugging at his pant leg. The child is being demanding, selfish and disobedient. However the patient, loving father scoops the child up in his arms, telling the child to hush a minute while he carries on his conversation. This is the kind of attitude God has towards us. We are sinners, plain and simple, selfish and demanding towards God and yet He waits with loving kindness as we walk the winding path we sometimes take to get to the point of salvation. In His righteous intolerance of sin, He is nonetheless slow to anger towards us when we keep getting it wrong. He perseveres when we reject His gift of salvation "not wishing for any to perish". He waits patiently for us to accept His gift and then grow in that gift to be the people He knows we can be. God is the very picture of Longsuffering in all of its many subtle shades of meaning.
When we focus on the Spirit and the wonderful knowledge He brings to us of our Father in Heaven, we begin to see this world differently. We see the people around us differently as well. A characteristic of the Fruit of the Spirit is the ability to have love and patience towards those around us, being slow to anger when they are less than kind and persevering when they push us aside. We will begin to show forth to others the fact that God is "not wishing for any to perish". The world needs that message today, just as it needed it when Jesus walked this earth. His life portrayed just how far God was willing to go to "draw all men to Him" (John 12:32). Our lives should show the same Longsuffering attitude if we stay focused on Jesus and connected with His Spirit. As with all the characteristics of the Fruit of the Spirit, it is not something we have to strive to achieve, it is simply something that shows forth through our lives to others because of our deepening connection to the Spirit of our Heavenly Father.