Proverbs 14:29: “He who is slow to be angry has great good sense; but he whose spirit is over-quick gives support to what is foolish.”
This morning when I woke up, and opened the curtains to my bedroom’s window, I could not see anything through my window. The window was covered with condensation, and outside, it was pouring with thundering rain. The sky was dark and grey, and the thunder roared on the top of my roof, above my head. But, this picture I saw through the window, made me think and my thoughts took me away, outside to the streets in the cold weather....
A little boy sat crossed legs under a bridge. There was no other hiding place against this weather, this morning. The thunder cracked again in the sky, and he quickly covered his ears against the loud sound. Every time he heard the thunder roaring like a lion, he felt to him like someone stabbed him in the heart. He felt so lonely. Just above the bridge, the people were passing by in their motorcars, probably in a rush on their way to work. Since the weather was so bad today, people seemed to be more annoyed. “Everybody are going their own direction”, he thought.
An icy cold wind breathes through the bridge, and he rubs his hands together to get a little warmer. The little boy is wearing ragged clothes, and in this weather he can feel his muscle’s acing. Every time the wind rushes by him, he feels an icy shivering through his body. He looks down at his feet, and sees the hole in his shoe, his one toe has turned blue. He tries to see through the misty and dreadful rain, but he cannot see anything. Then he rests his arms on his legs, this weather making him feel very tired. He can not help but wonder what this day has in stall, but then he suddenly sighs , and realizes that it will be just like the other days on the street.
Life on the streets has taught him great things but also a lot of patience. Sometimes it can be an adventure. An adventure with no end. It sounds very inviting but it can also be very harsh and difficult. Suddenly a smile appears on his face, and it seems to brighten up this awful day he’s been having. He thinks about the day, he went through the garbage for food, that day when he found that wonderful book, the “Bible”. That was the day, he started to have a new hope in his life, the day he found Jesus.
Before he met Jesus, his life was very hard, he felt hopeless, and disparaged, and his life seemed to be without meaning. He couldn’t help to ask questions frequently. “Why me? Why must I live on the streets? Why can I not have a better life? Why, why, why?” These questions used to go through his mind over and over, at that stage of his life. His life was a mess, without Jesus. Without Jesus he would not have been able to survive this life on the streets. He has learned through many difficult situations, to wait patiently for the outcome. And when the outcome finally came, it wasn’t what He expected at all, but it filled Him with so much joy.
“How long have I not been waiting for that outcome,” he sighed. For sixteen years of my life, I woke up with no hope, no food, nothing to drink. I did not know what to expect everyday. Sometimes it was so hard, I cried the days away. I remember one day, I picked up a ten rand note, and I thought it was my lucky day. While I was holding it up in the air, to have a look at it, someone grabbed it out of my hand. I shouted at the man to give it back to me, but he knocked me down. I fell down to the ground, my knee hitting the pavement. The blood flowed freely from the wound. I tried to stand up, but the sharp pain in my knee forced me back to the ground. I could not walk for the rest of the day. To worsen the situation, the hunger pain in my stomach made me vomit. I just sat there in the dust, and started to sob. Since that incident I could not walk properly, always having a sharp pain in my knee.
What about the day I saw a man lose his purse. I picked it up, and ran after him with the purse in my hand. I touched the man on his shoulders and held the purse out to him. He grabbed the purse out of my hand, and pushed me away in a hurry, and again left me with nothing.
So many tears were spilled, I have been hurt so many times, so many times I went to sleep, feeling hungry. Although life on the streets is hard and harsh, it has taught me a lot of things. Since I have discovered the Bible, I have grown so much into joy and faith in Jesus. One of the scriptures in the bible I read is the one in Proverbs 14:29: “He who is slow to be angry has great good sense; but he whose spirit is over-quick gives support to what is foolish.” I have learned so much through my journey in the bible, but this one strikes me the most. I used to be angry, I use to have no patience at all. Why, was I so angry? Because I could not accept my life the way it was. Not like that, is an unfair statement, I had it pretty rough. I have totally missed something in my life.
When I discovered Jesus, and His salvation for me, I learned to see my life through His eyes. I began to appreciate things in my life. I could appreciate even the smallest things. Patience is a very hard thing to learn, especially when you lived on the streets your whole life. Sometimes you feel so hopeless that you want to give up and you just want to die. But, when a new meaning comes into your life, like Jesus, you begin to understand things more clearly. I had to learn to have patience everyday. I had to learn to wait for the outcome in my life. I had to learn to even have patience with others, who were very cruel and cold hearted to me.
Patience is not something you are born with naturally. Patience is a God - given talent, and one must do everything in His power to obtain that talent, to make that His own. Each one of us lacks patience in some way or the other. If I look at my life on the streets, there were a lot of people that surely could do with some more patience.
I remember the one day I stepped into a bakery, with the hope that maybe I can be of some help, and in return the owner will give me something to eat. When the owner laid eyes on me, she shouted at her assistants angrily, and said; “Get that filthy boy out of here, customers are afraid of him”. With those words, I was shoved out the door. I felt so mad myself, because of the hurt inside of me. Why did I feel so mad, carry so much hatred toward that woman in the bakery? That, my friend, is the wisdom I discovered in Jesus. Jesus showed me, that she lacks patience, and she still has to learn it. When she has discovered patience, she will be able to understand what it is, to give and receive love from your fellow people.
I could only have learned to have patience in everything, and to apply it in my life, through the eyes of Jesus. Jesus has given so much for us. If we want to learn about having patience in our lives, Jesus always has patience with us, He always waits patiently for us, to discover His love.
The one question that struck the boy’s mind was, how come we do not have any patience in our lives, when they have so much more than him. Everyday our stomachs are filled, we have comfortable houses, we have security in our jobs, but still we lack patience. “Maybe, he thought, the reason is that they have not had such a difficult life as me. Because through my rough times and the way I’ve been living on the streets, it became a person who appreciates things that come my way, a lot more than they do. And by learning to appreciate things in your life by facing hard times, you learn patience as well, because many days can pass, before you have a break through in your life.”
The little boy stared up into the sky, and saw the magic of the thunder blazing through the grey sky again, but this time, he felt something different in his heart. He felt like someone was staring down at him. Who can that someone be? Then he smiled again, he knew that Jesus was there to comfort him in this day. His Saviour was there for him again. His Jesus that reached out His loving hands to him in His needs, and helped Him to discover the meaning of his own life.Patience leads us to Jesus, it forces us to depend on Him. If we can learn to have patience in our lives, and to have patience with others, because our God always have patience with us, we would have reached a victory in our faith and love in Him.
We can learn patience from the underprivileged people on the streets. Next time you pass a hopeless person on the streets, think about God’s patience and love for you, then you will know how to shower God’s love on that person as well.
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