Virtues

Saturday 2/10/18 6:44 AM

When frustrated some will quote the proverb, “Patience is a virtue.” When I am extremely frustrated I will occasionally include an addendum and say, “Patience is a virtue … with which I am not blessed.” Louis Savary and Patricia Berne suggest that we have lost the meaning of virtue in their book Prayerways. They point out that the Latin word “virtus” means power, or energy, while we, in the Western world, see a virtue as a way of behaving or responding. They write, “When one views spiritual gifts as fonts of energy – much as we view the sun, wind, tides, waterfalls, petroleum, coal, or wood as sources of energy – it is clear they need to be recognized, used, adapted, processed, worked at, cooperated with, and developed in order to be fully effective. Often in burnout it is not that the supply of spiritual fuel has run out; rather, it appears that we block ourselves from our sources of spiritual energy, we are unaware of their presence, or we try to force them into uses for which they were never intended and where they prove ineffective.”

Galatians 5 reminds me that the Holy Spirit, the dynamic power of God, is seeking to give me love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These are meant to be sources of power or energy for me as I move through life. In 1 Thessalonians 5:19 Paul says we should not quench the Spirit. The Holy Spirit seeks to empower my life. My job is to use, adapt, process, and cooperate with that power rather than to block that power and hence, to remove myself from the source of that energy. I need to keep the transmission lines of that power open so that I can move through my life in the way God would have me live.