Long In Spirit

Suffereth long. Bear long. Patiently endured. Have patience. Be patient. All of these phrases concerning patience come from the New Testament. They are all transliterations of the same Greek word, “Makrothymeo”, which means, “of a long spirit” and the ability not to, “lose heart” (Thayer's Greek Lexicon).

We generally think of patience as the ability to allow time to lapse. It does not necessarily have anything to do with enduring adversity or hardship. For example, we patiently wait for good things like Christmas morning, pregnancy test results, and for school to let out.

But the word Makrothymeo connotes adversity or challenge as seen by the words used in describing patience and time. Notice words such as suffereth, bear, and endured. So Makrothymeo is dealing with annoyance and aggravation over an extended period of time.

So isn’t interesting that Makrothymeo is defined as being of a “long spirit”? And as an ability not to “lose heart”?

The spirit can be none other than the spirit of Christ. The ability to not lose heart is faith. 

Makrothymeo is the spirit of Christ during adversity. Jesus was nothing but Makrothymeo, but with an added component. Foreknowledge. Jesus knew in advance of all of His trials and tribulations that He was to face, but he loved us so much that Jesus proceeded forward anyway.

“From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.” (Matthew 16:21)

Patience would end for most of us the moment we realized pain and death was in our immediate future.

Being long in spirit is maintaining our quickened spirit, regardless of circumstance, and to do this we must have honest to God faith.  Everything rest on our ability to believe, to live, to breathe and move in that belief, every moment of every day.

Bill Hitchcock