Day 27 | 40-Day Lenten Fast & Devotional

The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools. - Ecclesiastes 7:8-10

Good morning, family, grace and peace be unto all of you, my father's children.  It is, in fact, day 27 of our 40-day Lenten  devotional experience. This week has challenged and pressed, let me speak for myself, me as it related to the subject  of patience. And every year that we do this,  there's always a challenge that is created within my day-to-day experience that directly connects with the principle that God wants us to focus in on for the week. And God was in no shortage  of definitely testing and pushing me to be stretched in the area of patience.

So on this wonderful Friday, I want us to take a look as we conclude this area of devotional, this week of devotional, in Ecclesiastes chapter seven. And I'm really just going to look at verses eight  and nine. Ecclesiastes chapter seven verses eight and nine. And you'll find these words, “the end of a matter is better than its beginning and patience is better than pride. Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit for anger resides in the lap of fools.”

This scripture is packed with so much wisdom just in those just two sentences. Have you been there where you didn't let something play all the way out? Patience, patience will help you to avoid pitfalls. It literally says, listen, it's more important to be patient than to be prideful. What does that mean? Sometimes the reason why we're hasty is because one, we won't want to be misjudged, taken advantage of. We automatically assume that we recognize the entirety of a situation and we move in haste. Oh, I know they didn't do this to me. Oh, they think that I'm all of that and God says, listen, I what I need you to do is concentrate on being patient and here's what it also says. Listen, the end of a matter is better than its beginning. It says, patience, what patience does, it does not let you move on the first thing that you see. It says, listen, I guarantee if you take some time so that you can see the whole picture and operate in patience, I guarantee it'll be a better outcome. But that's not just with our emotions. That's also with  things in life. Sometimes some of the things that we see, we believe that the timestamp on it is so, so connected to its ability to be completed that we miss getting all the details. I know I've been guilty of it, maybe some of you have as well, that the excitement behind or me feeling as though if I don't do it right now,  it'll never get done or it can't be completed or everything's wrong. And this pride side of saying, I got to put my hands on it because I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea. And so I'm moving haste and in actuality, if I'd just paused, taking a beat.

I didn't think so highly of myself to say that I was the only person that could fix it. That maybe, just maybe, I could have avoided the hasty decision and let God really finesse and work it through the way it was supposed to. I love this about God. God is so strategic. He works, he's  way better than us in strategizing. And so our immediate notion ought to be to rely on how God wants us to.

Be patient enough to listen, to hear his voice, to hear how we should move, to know when we should move. But then the second portion says, don't quit quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools. See, patience also manages our emotions. It's your first step  to pop off. It's your first step to snap. Patience this entire week has been teaching us about a fruit of the spirit that ought to  govern our lives. And it's a challenge, but something that we consistently must work on.

Happy Friday, enjoy it. Enjoy this weekend. I can't wait to see you all on Sunday morning. God bless you. Don't forget tomorrow is prayer call at eight o'clock.  That number's in our Facebook page and our Instagram page.  So definitely can't wait to be with you at that sweet hour of prayer on tomorrow morning, but enjoy having a phenomenal Friday. Talk to you soon. Be blessed.