Doves On Distant Oaks

Planting Turnips

As a history enthusiast, I recall a story I once read about Hannibal's invasion of Italy during the Punic Wars. He had surrounded a city called Casilinum and refused to offer any terms of surrender for them. Since a portion of their food supply grew outside the city walls, Hannibal plowed up all the vegetable and other herbage plants that grew there—a sort-of scorched earth policy.

As the wait to starve them out drug on, one day he noticed women coming outside the walls and beginning to plant turnips in the ground he had plowed up. The Casilinum people were showing Hannibal they were willing to wait him out as long as needed. Hannibal, being impatient and wanting to move on, caved.

"Must I sit here at Casilinum even till these spring up?"
Titus Livius,The History of Rome, Book 23:19  

Through their act of patience, The Casilinum people had forced an impatient Hannibal to do something he hadn't planned on doing and freed the people of the city. Notice I said "their act of patience." That's because this example embodies two things: (1) that patience is an action, and (2) patience produces power over a situation.

Various passages in the Bible use long-suffering in place of patience, which is certainly not passive, though it has the appearance of doing nothing. It's a positive, albeit restrained, response to distress that can take a long time to produce results. But in doing so, it produces power over circumstance.

When we look at the Greek word for patience, makrothymia, we find an odd meaning. makrothymia means "long soul." This must mean that patience is an long-term endurance of the Spirit within us as an actionable attitude. It's probably where we get long-suffering from in the first place, which is part of the fruit of the Spirit that Paul writes about in Galatians 5:22-23. Conversely, the Greek word for impulsive means "short of spirit." So, It seems we're to be long-spirited rather than short-spirited.

Patience, therefore, is something that's a mind-set. It's important to recognize this, because anyone can say, "I'm not going to get angry" at a singular circumstance. However, being long-spirited, we need to be able to say "I'm not an angry person." There's a big difference between those two statements.

It's a tall order to change our mindset, which is why that only comes when we allow the Holy Spirit to direct our lives on a long-term basis. It's the Holy Spirits work in us that transforms us from short-tempered to long-tempered … from short-spirited to long-spirited.

The Greek word makrothymia, when used in other places, usually implies people rather than circumstances. This is something we all can most likely relate to. Somebody says something, or does something, and it upsets us to the point that we get angry. However, if we truly have the Holy Spirit within us, those things will begin to roll off us as if we have a protective layer surrounding our hearts. After all, we have the greatest example in God Himself, who is slow to anger.

Perhaps, when someone begins to upset us, we can think about planting turnips—in this case, planting long-soul seeds when under siege from sin.

He who is slow to wrath has great understanding, but he who is impulsive exalts folly.

– Proverbs 14:29

Keywords: Long-suffering, Patience

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