Job 17:2 reads, "Scoffers are my only companions, their harshness haunts my nights."

This may seem like a harsh sentiment, but it is a verse that gets close to how I feel some mornings when I get home from work.

Though I feel good about my work the last few nights, there are times I feel like this verse from Job. Perhaps it was because I felt useless as my gaze was met the guilt ridden eyes of those who self medicate; perhaps it could be that someone seeing my collar may have his or her paranoid delusions involving religious figures is triggered; even still, maybe I was the target of some body's issue of how the church seems to have damaged more lives than helped.

I am often asked if it is hard to see such chronic suffering night after night. I will not lie, some nights, my hope seems to be extinguished. Yet, Christ looked out on the people with a heavy heart, because they were like a flock without a shepherd.

Christ beckons to me on such nights to have patience, both with myself and the work of the Spirit; seeds that are sown now may bear fruit tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, or maybe even next decade. Recently, I was speaking at a church. Afterwords a retired juvenile cop walked up to me and told me a story of how a former teen he worked with called him up and thanked him for caring all those years ago. I too am now cultivating such stories of how somebody appreciated me taking the time to talk under a street light or in a coffee shop.

Patience is not just a virtue, but a fruit of the Spirit, especially in regards to the work of the Spirit.