Healing Family Relationships Through Patience

Scriptures: 1 Corinthians 13:4, 1 John 4:8

Many times I have had to utter the words, “I am sorry, I lost my patience.” It is a strange phrase. I had my patience, but somewhere along the way I lost it. I don’t know where it went. If you find it, let me know! Patience is an essential ingredient in family healing. You have heard the phrase, “Time heals all wounds.” It sounds nice, but it is not true. If a serious injury is untreated and ignored, time will only make it worse. We can say, however, “God can heal all wounds over time.” In this devotional, we will turn our attention to the “over time” aspect of healing relationships. If we want to see healing in our families, we will likely need an extra portion of patience.

“God is love” (1 John 4:8b). This is a Scripture we teach to children from their earliest years. Because God is love, one of His essential attributes is patience. We see this in 1 Corinthians 3:13. One of the great ways God shows His love is by being patient with us. Can you imagine what our relationship with God would look like if He was not patient with us?

Do you have anyone in your family who just won’t change? He won’t grow up. She won’t stop doing stupid stuff. He says he is going to stop, but they keep right on going. Her personality just drives you nuts. How many of us just get fed up, sick of it, and say, “I can’t take it anymore!” Maybe wedon’t say it out loud, but we say it in our hearts. We walk away from a conversation, or we hang up the phone, and in our hearts we say, “I am so done with you.”

Did you know God never thinks that way about His children? He is the Father who never loses His patience with His kids. Even when God disciplines us, He does so with a spirit of patience. I would have given up on me a long time ago. How many times have I committed the same sin? How many times have I come to God and confessed? At some point, we might think God would get fed up with us. I know I would. But when it comes to His children, He never stops caring, loving, and pursuing. He is patient with us, because He loves us.

Reflection Question: Is there a family member that seems to do the same irritating thing repeatedly? How might God be asking you to show patience in that relationship?

Scriptures: Luke 10:27, Psalms 37:7, James 5:8

God calls us to be patient with Him. Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart…” (Luke 10:27). If “love is patient,” then part of what it means to love God is that we are to be patient with Him. The scriptures you read call us to adopt a spirit of stillness and waiting.

I think every Christian struggles to some degree when it comes to unanswered prayers. We pray for weeks, months, years, and “nothing” seems to happen. Where is God? What is He doing? Why is He not doing anything? Is He even listening?

When my son was four years old, he said to me, “Daddy, I don’t like after.” “What?” “I don’t like after.” Son, what do you mean?” “Dessert is after dinner. Video games are after school. Games are after cleanup. I don’t like after.”

I agree with him! I don’t like after either. I like now. But no good parent gives their child everything they ask for now. Sometimes a good parent says “no,” or sometimes a good parent says “wait.”

Reflection Question: Where in your life do you need to practice patience with God’s timing, trusting that His “after” is better than your “now”?

Scriptures: James 5:7, Genesis 33:4

I want to share a family healing story that took place over twenty years. Jacob and Esau had an epic brother-vs.-brother conflict. They were twin boys, with Esau being born first. Jacob came out of the womb hanging on to Esau’s heel! The conflict between the brothers was fueled by their parents, Isaac and Rebecca. Isaac favored Esau, and Rebecca favored Jacob (Genesis 25:28). The family conflicts intensified when Esau, at the age of forty, chose to marry two Hittite women who “were a source of grief” to Isaac and Rebecca (Genesis 26:34).

When it came time for Isaac to bless Esau and transfer the leadership of the family to him, Rebecca helped Jacob deceive his father so that he might receive the blessing rather than his brother. Esau was enraged and “held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. He said to himself, ‘The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob’” (Genesis 27:41). Rebecca helped Jacob escape the wrath of his brother by sending him to live in Haran with his extended family.

Twenty years went by. Both Jacob’s and Esau’s families grew. Jacob sent a messenger to his brother Esau to see if perhaps his anger had waned. “The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, ‘We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men with him’” (Genesis 32:6). Jacob was afraid and rightly so. Was this a welcome party or a war party?

When Jacob’s caravan was still far away, he sent three teams of his servants, one after the other, to present gifts to Esau. Finally, the time had come for Jacob and Esau to meet face-to-face. In Genesis 33, we see Esau running out to greet Jacob, both brothers weeping as they embraced on another.

They not only received each other’s gifts and help, but their relationship was restored. It was a fresh start. It was a miracle, twenty years in the making.

Reflection Question: What family relationship in your life might need twenty years or more of patient prayer and faithfulness? Are you willing to trust God with His timeline of healing?

Scripture: 2 Peter 3:8

Another area where I struggle is being patient with God in light of His “tardiness” in sanctifying those around me. I believe in the work of the Holy Spirit to make us more like Christ, but I just think He could be working a little faster on a few key people in my life.

My wife and I have seven children, so I live with eight other people. Granted, that number is dropping as more of our children are launching through the college years. But as I am writing these words, all the kids are home on summer break. By the grace of God, each one of our children have put their faith in Christ, but we all continue to struggle with sin. I wake up each day facing the daunting prospect of making it through the day with eight sinful people living under my roof. You can imagine how difficult my life must be! Technically, there are nine sinners in the family, with myself as Sinner in Chief, but I prefer to focus on their problems. Hopefully the humor is coming through here.

As a parent, it is easy to become frustrated with the lack of progress we see in our kids’ growth. When will he learn to keep his room clean? When will she stop being so defensive? When will he pay attention to the speed limit? When will she stop picking on her little sister? It is easy for me to get exasperated with the slow character growth in my kids or my wife, while I simultaneously offer myself a pass for areas of my life that are not progressing. As long as I am “trying” or “doing my best” to change a bad habit in my life, I expect grace, tolerance, and even affirmation from my wife and kids.

If we want our believing family members to be gracious to us regarding the slow growth God is bringing about in our lives, we must strive to be patient with God’s slow work in their hearts as well. I continually remind myself, “This person is not my project! They are God’s project. I am not sanctifying them by my ‘holy spirit,’ God is sanctifying them by His Holy Spirit.”

Reflection Question: Which family member’s spiritual growth are you most impatient about? Do you need to repent of spiritual pride?

Scripture: Ecclesiastes 3:11

When we are experiencing conflict with a family member, we are in the middle of the story. We don’t know what God will do tomorrow as we pray for and seek healing with our families. We can be tempted to judge God based on the middle of the story and focus only on our current painful circumstance.

There was a time in Moses’s life when God told him to put his hand into his cloak. Moses did it, and when he took his hand out, it was covered in leprosy. Isn’t that terrible? He did what God told him to do, and he got leprosy. What kind of a God would do that? If you know the history from Exodus 3, you know that is not the end of the story. God tells Moses to put his hand back into his cloak, and when he removes it, the leprosy is gone.

Joseph had ten older brothers. They were so jealous of him that they sold him into slavery and told Joseph’s father that he had been eaten by wild animals. Joseph was in prison in Egypt for years. What kind of God would allow that to happen? God obviously did not love or care for Joseph. You are probably saying, “That is not the end of the story!” You would be right. God elevates Joseph to second-in-command in Egypt and uses him to save millions, including his own family from the famine. He reconciles with his brothers and is reunited with his father. It’s awesome, it’s amazing. You can’t stop the story when Joseph is in jail!

One more example. God sends His own Son, Jesus, into the world. He never does anything wrong. Yet He is betrayed, arrested, tortured, and hung on a cross for six hours before He dies. What kind of God would let this happen to His Son? Why didn’t He stop it? Hopefully, you see the pattern here. When you tell the history of Jesus, you don’t end on Friday. You must get to Sunday morning! Jesus busts out of the grave and is alive today. We even call it Good Friday, in light of Sunday’s resurrection.

This principle applies as we face our family struggles. In this moment we are suffering, feeling lonely, rejected, and hopeless. But this is just the middle of the story.

Reflection Question: What current family pain feels like “the middle of the story” to you? Pray for the Lord to give you fresh faith and endurance today.