In my hometown, there is a railway bridge that has been in operation since 1909. It’s the world’s longest and highest steel trestle bridge, spanning the Oldman River. Every day, and sometimes multiple times a day, trains cross this bridge to travel east or west across the Canadian landscape. Most of the time, the bridge sits there, empty, faithfully waiting for the next train to cross. See, the purpose of this bridge is not to be a bridge. The purpose of this bridge is to allow trains to safely cross the valley. Even when it’s empty, its purpose still remains, and when the load arrives, it’s there to carry it for as long as it’s required to do so. It doesn’t complain about the heaviness of the burden or refuse to carry out its purpose. It is doing what it was made to do. It has been doing it for over a hundred years, one train at a time, and everything it needed to carry those loads was built into it before the first train ever crossed.
Bridges make me think of the word “long-suffering.” It’s not a word we hear often anymore, except in church. We like to replace it with the word “patience,” but the Biblical meaning carries more weight than that. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word translates to “long in the nose,” or “slow to anger.” In the New Testament, it combines the Greek words makros (long) and thumos (temper or wrath) to mean “long-tempered,” or “having a long fuse.”
While “patience” often refers to enduring difficult circumstances or waiting on something, long-suffering includes this and also specifically entails enduring other people. It’s what holds you steady with a difficult person. It’s also what holds you steady in a difficult season.
In Scripture, “slow to anger” is almost always a description of God Himself. It’s who He is toward us. So when Paul lists long-suffering as a fruit of the Spirit in Galatians, he is describing God’s own character taking root in a person. Our fuse gets longer because His already is.
You and I were made by the God who created heaven and earth, and, just like everything else was made for a purpose, so we have a purpose. You can look everywhere for the reason for your existence, and most of us spend a good part of our lives doing that, but eventually, by His grace, we find our purpose in Him, because we were made for His glory and for His pleasure.
But oftentimes we deviate from our purpose. Most of us start out that way, and the weight we carry is usually of our own making. We choose it, and then we have to live in it. Of course, some loads arrive without our help. Job’s did. Wherever the burden comes from, God doesn’t stop His work. He waits, and He stays slow to anger. Then, one day, you realize He has something better to offer, and you turn toward it, straight into a time of suffering.
Scripture has a name for this stretch. The wilderness. Israel spent forty years in it because they refused to enter when God told them to. That was their decision, and they lived with it. But He went with them the whole way. He fed them every morning. He gave them water. He kept their clothes from wearing out. Forty years of correction, and He never once left. By the time they came back to His purpose, they were a different people than the ones who entered the desert.
Long-suffering is what gets us through our deserts. And yes, “suffering” is part of the word, and many times it’s the only part we’re focused on. But since long-suffering is one of the fruits of the Spirit, I have to assume it was always part of God’s design. It’s what God supplies to keep you standing while His correction does its work. It’s the strength to stay in the process long enough for it to be completed. And when you come out, you carry yourself and your neighbor the way He carries you. You learn to have a long fuse by spending a long time on the end of His.
Just like a bridge, we can carry what comes our way. The bridge’s ability to carry a load was put there by its designer, even before it was built. And so was ours. My purpose is not to be me, to live for myself. Everything is for Him. Long-suffering is the strength He puts in me to endure my journey back to His purpose.