Patience in mentoring... Longsuffering

It is not the job of the mentor to try to fix things or to come up with clever answers to difficult questions. We are called simply to walk with people through the valleys of life and be there for them as they “trace the rainbow through the rain”

The voice your wandering Brother or Sister needs most is not yours, but god’s.
The hardest part of rebuking someone has not been being honest or being winsome, but has been demonstrating patience when the rebuke is ignored, or when change comes slowly..
we are impatient in rebuke because we think rebuke works more like a microwave than a crockpot.

We want instant repentance and transformation, not the months or even years it often takes for God to rewire dysfunctional hearts and habits.

Our rebuke will always be shallow and fleeting if we think the work is done the moment we inform a Brother or Sister of their error. We often consciously or unconsciously believe that the right set of words will set things right, and we’ll immediately be able to move on. Good rebuke is not a moment of boldness, but a gentle and persistent pattern of patient correction.

Love is patient.
Patience is not passivity. It is active, intentional, and long suffering love.

Patience covers a multitude of sins. Our patience does not atone for others’ sins, or overlook them, but it will endure them for a time, bearing with the offense and hoping for repentance, even against all odds.

When I feel like giving up on someone again, Pray for this..
God, give me enough hope, enough love, enough patience to bear one more day. A time may come to walk away, but far too many walk away when true love would have been willing to stay.

Patience doesn’t just sit on the sidelines waiting for something to happen. It helps, and encourages, and even reprimand firmly, but with a faith-filled, compassionate willingness to wait (and even suffer) for change.

If we think we are being patient when we just withdraw or overlook or neglect or “let go” in the face of sin, in most cases we’re not truly being patient. In fact, we’re likely being impatient — and lazy, uncaring, and self-preserving. Instead of taking the rougher, harder road of patient perseverance, we opt for the moving walkway of easy avoidance.


Growing in patience requires building muscles through practicing patience, but those muscles feed on the Spirit. Every effort to exert patience in the face of resistance requires faith that God will work in us the patience that is pleasing in his sight (Philippians 2:13).

Complete patience with sinners only grows out of sinful hearts who have experienced perfect patience from the sinless one. To say it another way, patience and gentleness are the children of humility (Ephesians 4:2).

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
‭‭2 Peter‬ ‭3:9‬ ‭ESV‬‬


The hard work also involves taking them to God’s own words, thoughts, and desires in the Bible to have their words, thoughts, and desires shaped by his.

ask God to give you the integrity to be honest, the courage to speak up, the compassion to rebuke lovingly and winsomely, the patience to wait on his timing, and the specific words you need from Scripture to lead them through repentance.