Then Peter came up and said to Him, “Lord, how many times shall my brother sin against me and I still forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy-seven times.

—Matthew 18:21-22

This weekend, I had the mildly terrifying privilege of speaking to almost 350 women at the Pearl River Co Spring Tea. The Spring Tea is an annual event where the women of Pearl River County, Mississippi come together to spend time with the Lord and each other, eat some good food, and do a little shopping. 

It was a fun time of meeting new friends and meditating on and worshiping God, but I noticed something as the keynote speaker took the stage and began her talk on her journey through addiction. Without knowing it, both she and I were delivering testimonies that unintentionally highlighted God’s patience.

My testimony was about how God had brought me through a seven-year writing journey that included a lot of pitfalls, metaphorical face-plants, and discouraging seasons galore. There were times that I temporarily gave up and times when I spent more time playing around with the idea than I devoted to actually making progress. It was a season of God patiently developing me through those challenges. And her testimony was about God bringing her through addiction. 

The idea of God’s patience was a shining thread woven throughout both of our stories even though neither of us chose that as our focus for our messages. And we see that thread again here in Matthew 18 even though it may not be obvious at first.

These quick verses in Matthew 18 are a common enough story told in Sunday school. Peter thinks he’s pretty grand for offering to forgive those who have wronged him seven times—a number that represents completion in the Bible—but when he asks the question, Jesus surprises him by blowing that number out of the water.

The message is effectively, “Don’t just forgive until you decide you’ve forgiven them enough. Keep forgiving them just like God keeps forgiving you.” And there it is. Without ever actually saying the word, we get a command to be patient with those around us because it’s next to impossible to forgive someone multiple times without having patience.

It’s an interesting connection that flows into the rest of chapter 18 as Jesus tells the parable of the servant who is forgiven an enormous debt by his master and then turns around and demands the man who owes him a much smaller sum pay up. Both times the debtors beg for mercy over their debts, what they actually say is, “Please have patience with me.”

With some words in the Bible, when you look into their original meaning, you find that there’s more meaning to be found because there isn’t a word in English that translates perfectly. With this word patience, however, there is more meaning to be found just because the form of patience being referred to is deeper and richer than we normally mean.

When we think of someone telling someone else to be patient, we’re normally thinking of waiting. Waiting in line at the DMV or waiting to check out at Hobby Lobby—cause we all know those lines can get crazy—but Matthew 18’s version of patience is so much more.

Patience as it’s referenced in Matthew 18 means to be long-suffering. In other words, there is a specific difficulty, and being patient means that the person is intentionally restraining himself from acting in anger toward that difficulty.

This detail just amazes me because this is how God relates to us. He forgives 70×7—completely compounded by completion—and does so all the while as He deliberately chooses to continue dealing with us in kindness and gentleness.

When you compare this type of patience and forgiveness to how fickle human patience and forgiveness can be, it’s absolutely astounding. Despite how many times we mess up, despite how many times we choose to reject Him and put ourselves first, He chooses to be patient and kind and give us time to turn back to Him.

This is the kind of love we’ve always been searching for and this is a God worthy of our gratitude and praise!