「憑著忍耐奔那擺在我們前頭的賽程。」－希伯來書12:1
悲痛時的休止停息，不幸時的沉默不語，的確都相當難能可貴；然而遭受攻擊時的咬牙工作，重擔纏身時的持續奔跑，靈中憂傷時的至死忠信，豈不更顯得榮耀尊貴嗎？這才是基督的美德！
若神不禁止我們將哀痛藏於心底，儘管人們臉上已止住了淚水，心中仍會容讓哀傷滋長。
但真正難為的，是神並非要我們在床上操練忍耐，祂乃是要我們走上街頭。
神並非要我們在昏沉的寂靜裡埋葬傷痛，祂是要我們繼續活躍於忙亂的服事中；祂要我們在交際裡、在人潮中、在幫助人喜樂的時候，埋葬我們個人的哀痛。這就是經文上所說「憑著忍耐奔那擺在我們前頭的賽程」。
哦，人子啊，這就是你的忍耐！這就是走走停停、動靜交錯的忍耐；一面正等著將成的目標，一面又不停下帶在手邊的工作。
儘管心中背負憂傷，你卻從不向人訴苦。我見到你在迦拿時，為了不掃婚禮的興致，親自變水為酒；我見到你在野地裡，為了人們的飢困，剝開五餅二魚。
烏雲密佈時人們嚮往彩虹，但我卻盼望求得更多；願你使我成為雲霧中一道使人歡欣的虹，使我能在葡萄園中辛勤作工，使我的忍耐能以完全。
－馬特孫
"Let us run with patience" (Heb. 12:1).O run with patience is a very difficult thing. Running is apt to suggest the absence of patience, the eagerness to reach the goal. We commonly associate patience with lying down. We think of it as the angel that guards the couch of the invalid. Yet, I do not think the invalid's patience the hardest to achieve.
There is a patience which I believe to be harder--the patience that can run. To lie down in the time of grief, to be quiet under the stroke of adverse fortune, implies a great strength; but I know of something that implies a strength greater still: It is the power to work under a stroke; to have a great weight at your heart and still to run; to have a deep anguish in your spirit and still perform the daily task. It is a Christlike thing!
Many of us would nurse our grief without crying if we were allowed to nurse it. The hard thing is that most of us are called to exercise our patience, not in bed, but in the street. We are called to bury our sorrows, not in lethargic quiescence, but in active service--in the exchange, in the workshop, in the hour of social intercourse, in the contribution to another's joy. There is no burial of sorrow so difficult as that; it is the "running with patience."
This was Thy patience, O Son of man! It was at once a waiting and a running--a waiting for the goal, and a doing of the lesser work meantime. I see Thee at Cana turning the water into wine lest the marriage feast should be clouded. I see Thee in the desert feeding a multitude with bread just to relieve a temporary want. All, all the time, Thou wert bearing a mighty grief, unshared, unspoken. Men ask for a rainbow in the cloud; but I would ask more from Thee. I would be, in my cloud, myself a rainbow--a minister to others' joy. My patience will be perfect when it can work in the vineyard. --George Matheson
