Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

I'm Mike Whitmer and I called our devotional reading Lessons in Patience.

Bob Salem holds a speed record for pushing a peanut up Pike's Peak with his nose, or rather

with a spoon attached to his face. He accomplished the feat in seven days, working at night

to avoid interruption from tourists. Bob is the fourth person to complete this stunt, which means

three other very patient people have done it.

We might say their need for patience was self-inflicted, but so often in life, that isn't the case.

We need patience. It's a fruit of the spirit and an essential virtue for becoming mature and complete,

not lacking anything.

Patient people keep their heads when everyone around is in full panic.

They like the situation to be different, but they don't need it to be.

They stay the course, trusting God for wisdom to act wisely. The problem with patience is,

there's only one way to learn it. The book of James says, the testing of your faith produces patience.

Such testing comes in ways big and small. I'm writing this from an airport.

My 11 p.m. flight was delayed until 2 a.m. then canceled.

After a night without sleep, I'm chugging coffee and hoping to make it home sometime.

I don't like wasting an entire drowsy day in an airport, but my loving father is teaching me patience.

I pray my lesson is finished for the day, but who knows?

Time to check the standby list for the next flight.

Today's Our Daily Bread Devotional Scripture reading is from James chapter 1, verses 2 through 12.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,

because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.

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