"But the fruit of the Spirit is...longsuffering..." (Gal. 5:22)

The word longsuffering means "to suffer long; to gird up under pressure, persecution, distress, and trouble; to remain steadfast; patience."

Because many believers are trying to be led by the Spirit of God without being willing to suffer in the flesh, their lives are silently witnessing to the world that being a Christian is great—as long as things are going well.

However, as soon as things begin to go wrong, the attitudes and actions of these people often present a totally different picture of Christianity. Yet it is precisely those times of personal suffering which are often the most effective witness to the world, for it is then that unbelievers can best see the difference that knowing the Lord makes in the life of an individual.

When the world sees someone who can come through his sufferings with faith, hope and love; someone who can display the nature and attitude of God despite difficulty and suffering; someone who can emerge victorious from every conflict, they will stop, look and listen to that person as though Jesus Himself were speaking to them.

Therefore, if we believers are to be effective witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ, then it is imperative that we manifest the character of Jesus to the world. In order to do that, we desperately need the presence of the fruit of longsuffering in our individual lives.

The first function of the fruit of longsuffering then is to produce endurance. We can define endurance as "the capacity to remain firm under suffering without yielding to anger, resentment, despair, or self-pity." The writer of Hebrews was referring to this attribute of endurance when he likened the Christian life to a foot race:
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.
(Heb. 12:1)
God has called us to run our race with patient endurance. That means that it is not a short sprint requiring great speed. Instead, this is the long, grueling type of race that demands endurance. Believers who run according to their feelings and emotions will never endure long enough to cross the finish line.

Marathon runners would never finish their course if they stopped running as soon as they began to feel hot, thirsty, or tired. Yet, so many times we believers feel justified when we stop running at the appearance of the first drop of spiritual "sweat." We seem to individually reason, "Surely God doesn't expect me to run this race if it's going to cause me to perspire!"

A Biblical Example
The Apostle Paul is a perfect example of how to run the Christian race with endurance. In 2 Corinthians 11:23-28, he testified of what he was called upon to endure in order to finish the course set before him. He endured being beaten with whips and rods; he endured the weariness of hard travel; he endured the suffering inflicted by robbers, by his own countrymen, by the heathen, and by hypocrites.

He endured danger in the city, in the wilderness, and in the sea; he endured pain, imprisonment, shipwreck and physical discomfort; he endured the cares involved in being the overseer of all the churches. Yet in spite of all these sufferings and adverse circumstances, Paul never gave up; he continued to run with patience the race that was set before him.

Why did Paul continue to persevere in the face of such suffering and opposition? He saw past the hardships of the race to the prize which awaited him at the finish line. Paul allowed nothing to deter him from reaching the goal and reward which lay before him.

We believers would do well to learn a lesson from the Apostle Paul. We should not take lightly the admonition of Hebrews 12:1 to run our race with patient endurance.

Source: A Call For Character by Greg Zoschak
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers