Month: December 2023

When we discover (as only Christ can lead us) how easily we are maneuvered toward pleasure(s) and away from suffering(s), we may come to see a thing. It is our very disposition toward such that allows for such maneuvering. We are wholly, and till such time as Christ reveals, devoted to pleasure(s) as a good thing, any pain or suffering as evil or bad. Christ knows this very well of us.

It really is not a reach to say that the fall (our fall) itself was an attempt to right a something we perceived as lack to an abundance of having. But if you think you are entirely unlike Adam, at all, one need only look closer. For there can be no motion from first Adam into last Adam apart from once being (even knowing) one was (and to whatever extent remains of mind) of the first Adam.

He is not “bypassed”. This renewal of mind exhorted is from a something to another something. First comes the natural, then the spiritual. And it is only by this that a seeming paradox can even be seen to provoke to resolving…for actually it is the spiritual one, Christ Himself, who is before all. But we must “go through” our natural first…to have any apprehending of the spiritual. We all share in ourselves, such natural beginning to ourselves.

It is, in that sense the “great equalizer”. No man has ever, nor would, nor could…claim in truth any more natural disposition to loving God in obedience…than Adam could. This is a hard word for any who still find comforts from their flesh, or thinking themselves in some way(s) better than another. No natural man is or ever has been more obedient to God than Adam, and Adam was/is disobedient. We can read of Adam as “other” till we awake and see our own selves. In truth we can think of all men as other till we see ourselves. For us to our own knowing, God has purposed to start with dust, clay…and make a living soul. And till Christ be revealed in us as the preeminent of all, the soul informed of flesh and dark messengers, holds all sway. But, and only, when it pleases God to reveal His son in us, then all is changed.

And strangely (but not to God) we learn the method of this glorious revelation made able to be delivered is, and has been, through a most humiliating and painful instrument set in place to our liberation. We delight in knowing ourselves as changed (and it is entirely fitting) but we cannot deny it came at a terrible cost through a (once) terrible instrument. Add to this (have you added to this? have I?) this was neither accident…nor ultimately of any man’s doing, despite the hands that handled him and put Him to it and on it.

No, this is, and has been solely in and through the plan of God. It (even!) God help us all, “pleased Him” to do it. There is no indication of scripture nor spirit that God had a wincing in it, or even a “I hate to have to do this…but…”. No, and as need be, read again from the prophet Isaiah.

Or consider “the cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?”

This may be a grand matter, this may be the smallest matter of all…God knows. But for me, and what I trust has been God’s work in a man (even a man like me) to come to both any merest understanding that God delights to show mercy, even to such delight as to “be pleased” to put His own Son through this to that end…convicts me that He does indeed have a pleasure in mercy I may know little about…but is surely worth the investigating.

Add to this that this specter, this thing lifted up, this man lifted up…looking nothing like a King, nothing like a superior, nothing like anything but what itself is being broken and far more in need than mercy than I…is where I can only go to find it. Even, and only from Him. To see it. To even in some way, come to appreciate the way of God in it. If for you there has been a real “of course, only a silly man would have any need of such a a things as this being resolved to himself…”…well…you have now met that silly man.

“Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief” I am not so foolish (only by the grace of God) to abandon only to another’s plea. A man “not like me” who once spoke so.

How to square this doing. Yes at first it appeared all too lovely a story, a story of ultimate sacrifice. on behalf of others. But I am not as sure now as once I was I was enticed as much by the truth of it (to myself) as the loveliness of it. Yes…I “saw” it ( a miracle) but its main appeal was of the “niceness” of it. Who wouldn’t want to know one who “gave all” for them, and on their behalf?

But seeing in part the very truth of it…(to whatever extent I have been allowed and granted by grace) of a man who, with a word to His Father could have gone around the whole of it with more than 12 legions of angels; but instead endured it, embraced it, refused being pitied in it, refused being made numb to it, refused even counting it so dear in all pain to Himself that he could not hear the plea of another there.: “Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom…” It is where loveliness and truth must merge, as terrible a truth it may even seem. This is God’s way…of showing what He delights in: mercy. And that good Son could not be moved to deny it. It flows there.

Sometimes a thing can be made clearer (a bit) by saying what it is not. And I cannot lie to you and deny my very first inclination was to speak of this matters in these terms I was rebuked of saying. I was going to say “In one way it is God’s putting a lock upon it” that the place we would or never could look is now the place where a thing is found…in other words no one gets to see unless invited and given the key. To me that sounded right…till rebuked. But then I saw how plainly Jesus delivers the key, and so really, it is not that. For in this is seen the key “Whatsoever you do to the least of these my brethren, you have done unto me”.

Do you see? Once this is delivered to any man, any man has it. O! But God’s wisdom is great in catching a man! Before we deal with the man who “says” he has accepted this in any form of believing himself and declaring himself a “christian”, a disciple, a believer…let’s look at the man who says “it’s all balderdash”. Already he is in reaction to. Something has come to him in part or whole of the gospel by the expression of Christ’s word…and he holds that reaction. He is in all essence saying “It is true that Christ is a liar”. Even “I am true in what I hold as truth…and Christ is a (or the) liar”. He has, and is, establishing himself as arbiter of truth…even as true to himself. Even truth itself to himself. He is the true, Christ is the not true.

It is not a hard equation to see, but what is subtle to discern is that which is made clear by the spirit, is that man is reactor. Not actor, even though he takes that to himself in his presumption of being true, and truth to himself. An, or even the, origin of truth. And he has set himself in full opposition to the word of another man who speaks truly of God.

Every man has a god.

And the scriptures are rife with the consequences of such attitude when held.

If you have any work as a believer it is to be led to this man and preach the gospel to him. Preach all the consequence present in unbelief to him, preach the terrors of the wrath of God to Him and the salvation even of that God through Christ to him, and even love him as your very self. Remind Him all will meet and be judged in the eyes of Him who holds eyes as a flame of fire. He may be the very least of all the brethren in your esteem, he may not. But if you would preach to others, you cannot escape the command to preach to him. Preach to him till he finds the terrors of death surrounding him and his only hope is in Christ and His resurrection.

You may find him to be yourself.

You may say what has this to do with “whatsoever you do to the least of these…”

There’s a man in the Lord each of us easily neglects in the preaching of the gospel in order he be built up in Christ, and we do not know he is actually the least till we are graciously stopped from thinking he is so much more than that. And we so easily tend to think many of the words are hyperbole, some are just “nice things” a man might say to either appear humble or contrite. As Paul saying he was the chiefest of sinners, or this:

Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;

who am less than the least of all saints…

Paul understood.

To ignore that man in this, even as this, is to truly ignore Christ.

Till then it is only a comforting vanity for us to think some other needs the truth of Christ more than we.

We therefore see apostles Peter and Paul in much agreement over this matter of patience. Peter reminding to count the patience of God as salvation, and making mention that Paul often writes of the same thing. Even if in other matters he (Paul) writes of things hard to understand. Do you find it noteworthy that even another apostle might confess “some stuff ain’t easy to understand”?

If we believe each lived as they wrote, that is by revelation, we begin to appreciate that revelation and revelations require some unpacking. We may even learn that those we receive, even if most personally, require no less. A digesting of sorts that goes beyond what may lead to presumption of a thing if merely tasted. Taste is good, I am not arguing against that at all. It is taste that gets the digestive juices flowing.

But there is also another strange matter at hand that cannot be denied, sometimes the taste of things seems all wrong, out of place; at best irrelevant, at worst, toxic. Who hasn’t heard “chew the meat and spit out the bones” in referencing some matters another may share. As in… “I recommend (or find) this fellow may have some things worthy to say, so take the goods from it, what is useless, disregard”. It seems sound advice, no? “Don’t reject everything because some may not be to your liking or fitness, take what you can from it”. But even in that…what seems a soundness of advice is already some judgment… “all may not be fit to eat”. It is a very back handed, even when seeming necessary, way of dealing. And if this is revelation only God can make clear… “the thing you spit out today may be the very thing you find yourself in need of tomorrow”.

And how many times has a situation or circumstance (even in mind) presented that you “go back” searching in the scripture saying “I know there is a fit to this…I remember something I once read that addresses this very thing…do I remember it rightly…I must make sure”” A very “Oh! this is that which was spoken of…” moment when you find it? Have you ever?

A thing or word went in “enough” even though it seemed to matter little or make no sense at the time…but enough in…that now you are provoked to see its fitting-ness. Aha Lord…you already spoke to this very thing…even to me! But it was waiting to be uncovered to you. Yes, often a thing we either did not or could not understand at one time, or even misunderstood and/or counted as little perhaps…suddenly becomes a matter of the God of all creation speaking directly to you. Deep connection is made. The “light” goes on. Bingo!

But we have to (in some sense of “have to”) admit, that if believers, even if not yet convinced all the “red words” and “black words” are of the same spirit, given for our benefit, recorded for our benefit, even lived out by those chosen to do so to benefit; that in all we have this conviction that when Jesus says His “words are spirit and they are life” it is true. Even if we have any disposition to thinking that means “mostly” the red words, then surely above all, by that disposition there is a provoking to know. Even if it only be most particularly the them of those all recorded. A hunger is produced when we find ourselves believing. A need to know. To eat and drink. A need…to live by what life really is.

But here’s the thing…even the red words sometimes seem to either “go over our heads”…or are consigned to some lesser import. Who is not able to repeat verbatim John 3:16? (No this is not a quiz, and life in the Lord is not a memory game of scriptures) But you may understand. And am I simply being painfully, even too painfully obvious as to be as absolutely of no necessity? Ah, but this would be good, very good indeed, for that is what I am all of…no necessity to any. Telling things already too plainly to be known.

Yet here is another thing in this matter…a matter of reference, even some unraveling of particular matters of the how and why of us. It has to do with that “strange matter” mentioned a few paragraphs back. We like comfort (God knows). We like what tastes good to us (God knows). But God also knows how we fare if left to ourselves.The scriptures are rife (yes, even new testament as well we call them) with (is it “our” or their?) misadventures. Even [almost] wholes of congregations may come under an ungodly sway. If we are familiar it may not “shock” us by such as our being familiar, but were we to say “this is no less true of us than them”…(or me than them)…do you see where a certain resistance comes in? If not out right rejection? We easily feel we have learned (and are) better because we have their example given us as from a “them”. Yes, we easily assume we have taken the whole of matters quite to heart…and are now the sobered up people…and not like…them.

But here is warning. Any inclination or adopting of attitude toward “a them” (our brothers and sisters) that leads to any fragrance of divorcing ourselves from them…well…do you see? Who are we in truth divorcing ourselves from? The “We (or I) are not like the Corinthians…or the Galatians…or those to whom the Lord ministers stern rebuke of the seven churches.”

Until we come to recognize we are very much in a fellowship of necessary rebuke, even sternest of chastenings and corrections…we not only do not appreciate a thing, but neglect…and may even be found willfully ignoring certain truth(s). And one that only becomes very precious by enduring rebuke is this: “As many as I love I rebuke and chasten…”

It’s always easier, and in some ways shamefully precious to us, to see the foibles and shortcomings of others instead of the Lord whose blood was shed for them no less than an us, or a me. Dare we talk about, make hay about “those others” as though we are immune…or better than to fall for what they have left us in record? It is not unlike the foolish man who may raise up Peter in long winded sermons (a man probably just like me) thinking he, of course, could never be brought to any such denial(s). Such thinking actually, just paves the road ahead to just that. The consequence(s) are already in the attitude. We are simply as those saying to the Lord…”Had we lived in the days of our fathers we would not have…blah blah blah…” The question is not really “will we ever learn…?” But statement quite in opposition…it is all of miracle that we ever might.

For if we have learned a strange thing in all our seeking of comfort (not a bad thing of itself), learning we have preferences of taste (not a bad thing of itself), do not like suffering and are no more able to appreciate it at the time than any other, it is that a new appetite is given even for truth above all despite its precious cost to us even in light of its precious cost to be made for us, and find the only one with no bones to “spit out” who speaks to us. We begin to swallow some very hard things…even learn we are made fit for their digesting by another, and that not one of the Lord’s words or acts toward, or for us, is any less precious to us than any other.

We may even begin to enter into that blessedness of hunger and thirst (once unpleasant in sensing that cause babies to cry out in wailing) and learn of such blessedness. For to the hungry soul even every bitter thing is sweet.

How hungry are we made to be? How thirsty?

How satisfied?

And full?

He cried “I thirst” from a terrible stake.

But as in the people’s meeting the waters of Marah, once too bitter to drink

So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?” He cried out to the Lord; and the Lord showed him a piece of wood; he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.

It is the very cross of Christ, and our own death(s) faced in utter completeness and all of the old creation that even makes us come to be able to glory in what once terrified.

It is not even that the hungry soul may come to see it, that gift of hunger manifesting our total dependence and necessity for what is “not of us” to sustain us (a man will not live long eating his own body parts) is what compels us to it, and in utter dependence…even find perfect liberty.

“Preach it!” we may hear. “Go and preach it” heard as such command we find now a burden laid upon us…even such as “woe to me if I preach not the gospel”. Oh, yes, do not doubt or think you are the only one who has even felt this…a compelling, a necessity, a being driven to a thing. Even such as could be described as overwhelming. And one then enters into experience and experiences. Real experiences, without doubt. Things happen. Even unexpected things, some unwanted things, such things as (if we are forced to honesty) we “never saw coming”.

Oh, we were told they would come, we were told to be ready for their happening and to not be dismayed when they do…but…nevertheless we are. Or we could lie. Yes we can. We could try and present ourselves as those who have never been surprised, never been shocked or in any way “caught off guard”, as those who have “always known”. In short, an expert.

But God knows. God knows all the times we have met with frustration, even such fierce resistance coming from quarters unexpected that vex us, rebukes, chastenings and the like that we may eventually be even moved to tears before Him. And that is the good end, even the best we may come to.

The “bad” one is to develop some intransigence, some hardening, some self convincing that in (what we think) is our sole desire to do what is right and be obedient…”all the stiffneckedness” is out there…and in others. Where our only comfort is in our own self pity. Do I lie? Is Elijah’s experience too quaint to us? “I’m the only one left and now they seek my life”? Or Moses…smiting the rock?

(Do you think that in their appearing with our Lord on that mountain and the speaking of His upcoming demise…Jesus was not considering…lessons? Might both Moses and Elijah hold “lessons”? Or was it appeal? “Remember who you are, you are not like us or as we were…you Lord, are our hope!” Could that even be? “We can tell you how sorely tempted you will be to self pity and an ungodly anger…but…you are the hope of all Israel…yes…even see us in our weakness…and know why we so depend upon you to be who you are” Could that even be? “You Lord, are the Lord. Made in flesh like us…but not like us”)

Do I speculate? God knows. Do I “project” upon Moses and Elijah a self pitying attitude (or tendency toward it) that is really only in me? God knows. But we do know a voice came in response to what seemed a “reasonable” suggestion (as Moses and Elijah also stood very great as with the Lord in some eyes) “Let us make three tabernacles…” But a voice came to the setting apart of that Son from those servants. How very good it did. And still does…to separate that Son in our esteems. Have you heard it?

Yes, being made like Messiah Yeshua is a work of all patience…just as keeping us from any “messianic complex” does. Sanctify the Lord in your heart…(but don’t worry…there’s all the help there is working to that end in you, if you are His.) A helper, devoted to help. He can even help us learn to abandon all self comforting lies! Talk about miraculous power and working! That a man might be made to receive this thing he once so hated…even the love of the truth! Oh, yes, power indeed.

“Let patience have her perfect work” is a well needed caution to get out of the way of inhibiting, short circuiting, or seeking to short cut. But again…don’t worry…(why would, or how could… salvation have worry in it?) you have a Father who sees, a Father who knows and understands. And works in all patience. So patient indeed that He is able to work in one who holds all presumption to a conforming to another…even One without any presumptuousness in Him.

To say He is fully devoted to our understanding of this gospel we may preach is akin to understatement. This conforming to His Son as the very heart of all things of the gospel is no small work, and something no less than God Himself accomplishes. None less than God could…or would. Even with all…of Himself. (What is the gospel but the very testimony of that giving? God’s giving of all of Himself through Jesus the Christ to man’s salvation?)

To admit we are always looking for some comfort may be a large confession or very small one indeed. God knows. And God also knows all our ways of seeking to short cut to it. I can accuse no other of this without incriminating myself (as no less a man) so rather I have found it safer (even been forced to see it so) to make it only as a confession. And where such a man (as myself) may have held all wrong inferences (read:presumptions) in this matter of the gospel and even its preaching, I can only confess for myself.

The short cut I took to comfort was assuming any call to preach or share was as testimony to my own having it so well in order in able to do so. What once was my own obvious conclusions have all been quite shattered by a hand under which I cannot escape. Call it mighty. And so the comfort I took to myself in that command was “obviously I must know something” for this One to be telling me to “go” or do. If He tells me to build a bridge…then…obviously He must see me as a “good” (or good enough) bridge builder.

Little did I know (O! how very little did I know!) the end of this telling “to go” was only to the end that I might even begin to learn the all of which I did not know…but once presumed to. I was not told to “go” because I am (or was) expert, or good at, or even know. I was told to “go” to find out the all I did not know as I ought. I am quite persuaded that in His mercy and patience and grace that He did not, nor would He in all his knowing…not know…how a man like that would have received “go, because you really don’t know a thing, but tell of me.”

No, (or yes) He is merciful.

And, after all, who doesn’t (or wouldn’t) want to be seated next to or very close to the Christ of God if catching any glimpse? Who doesn’t like being “in tight” with the power of all power?

O! but the way is different than first thought. So very, very different than that man could have even apprehended when responding to “are you able to drink of my cup?” Yes, I am able! Send me, send me! I am able.

Oh, but there is so much laughter. So much laughter, thanks be to God!

You will indeed drink of my cup.

When this cross we preach, this way of salvation that is made for us as to us…comes in that “to us” as to us… man Lord! I had no idea! I am not good at this at all, it breaks me, it leaves me wondering if you are even in it with me, it makes me cry out as never before, like a baby, like an lost and abandoned child……no Lord, I am not good at this…at all. Lord! Lord! I am not good at all. Lord, forgive me…I did not know. No, not at all.

Or, (God forbid) we could pretend to be “good” at it.

“Forgive them Father, they know not what they do”

And I once always thought “they” was someone else.

And God knows what remains of that.

Thanks be to God His patience is salvation. And can be counted so.

If we consider patience, and that particularly spoken of as being the Lord’s in Paul’s esteem that it be counted as salvation, we may find the matter of consequence(s) (or what we consider such) in far greater proximity to truth and truths than first we understood.

I have some inkling that we all, in one way or another, suffer under the burden of time. It may be the barest of sensing, nevertheless I will not deny it. And what next I say I say with some trepidation and in whatever fear of the Lord I also sense as having been granted me, even so is the Lord’s goodness. It is a hard thing to say for it is open wide to all rebuke, but I dare not be moved (or even restricted) by anything so craven as fear of rebuke. What might ordinarily be called “getting in trouble with God”. For “with God” is a thing I have found I cannot escape, even as trouble is for a time appointed; the only matter ever at hand is “is it the right trouble?” By many tribulations…we enter.

This “eternal weight of glory” that Paul speaks of, and of which Jesus, God’s Christ, is the full manifestation…is it not heavy indeed? Who hasn’t felt some pressing under it? A pressing to conformity, a pressure in molding, even a certain woe perceived accompanying its absolute call to discharge…as in “woe to me if I preach not the gospel!”. Paul felt/sensed/knew (have you? do we?) a matter of necessity:

For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!

Beyond, even well beyond, (for I hope to speak to those of some maturity) is any consideration that any preaching adds any merit or “goodness” to any. Paul is quite plain about self glorying in any relationship to this. “No, I am not good or better or in any way able to find any attribution for such as I might glory in…’I have to’ preach!” Necessity…is laid upon me.

And I am rather convinced that this equation (if you will) is not unsound…it is the very glory (and goodness of Christ Himself) that lays such weight upon a man. The call of it, the sight of it, the vision of it, the revelation of it, the sheer weight of it in truth…has in itself that very compelling to necessity. We cannot speak but of that which we have seen and are seeing. Even learning. Which, we come to find, all men are already assigned.

Everyone (even every thing) is “giving off” expression according to their sight and understanding. All things in the creation hold expression of what they are. Even of necessity. From the most debased (as we might consider) to the most aged and pious saint. Nothing escapes assignment to this. No thing. Paul is in essence saying “I am a thing now created to preach the gospel, and I cannot escape it”. Necessity is laid upon me. O! but this is far different than the man who meets the Lord and recalls before Him what he thinks has been his good work! Have we not prophesied…done many mighty works…”look at my record!”.

Yet, what does the Lord say?

By the grace of God I am what I am…is all Paul can say. And I am no less persuaded such apprehension does not come “apart from” nor separate from this knowing…”even if I am set to be all of warning, even a cautionary tale, all of what or how a man should not be…if God in His infinite wisdom has set me to that…then it is all by His grace He does so…in some benefit that only grace can accomplish on behalf of His beloved of Christ.

Yes…a sober man does not “want to” appear outside…but a sober man also knows his own preferences here are as nothing…but for Christ’s work (and working) on his behalf. How God whittles down to truth! All is being taken that must be taken…till (in all hope) only the glory of the Christ of God be known. Talk about…weight!

No wonder Paul said “who is equal to such a task?” Man (who is not God) made to bear this weight…who alone can “do anything about it?” …but God? And so we find ourselves being whittled in this matter, even of all seeming contradiction(s)…even as the sculptor was asked “How do you make a sculpture of an elephant?”

Simple.

“I take away all the parts that don’t look like an elephant”

And God is making a man in us.

In all patience…because He sees Him there and will do no damage to the vision.

Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

A people being maneuvered by fear into bondage. And particularly, even ultimately as all root of fear, that being “of death”, is the fear that maneuvers.

There is a hand in glove relationship here, between this by the writer of Hebrews and what Paul has said in 1 Corinthians:

The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.

“But wait!” An astute reader might think having apprehended that it is by sin that death made entrance. “Shouldn’t it be obverse? …’the sting of sin is death’…therefore?” For was it not sin that brought death to be visited upon Adam’s race? Isn’t death the consequence of sin and not at all the other way ’round?

We are even familiar that the wages of sin is death…and so sin is always that primary with death always and only being in consequence. Sin “brings” death, yet Paul is saying the sting is not death…but sin.

Is something amiss here? It surely could appear, or seem so, but do we have any question of Paul’s wisdom received…or the spirit’s precision/accuracy?

Some (perhaps much) has been written elsewhere by necessity, that what we call matters of consequence and consequences must be set in order of our thinking.

Naturally we tend to think of consequences as things following…things coming after or later, not apprehending that all consequence is already very present to any matter. In truth so present to all matters that there is no separation, only our once misguided experience of them (abetted by our confidence in time) that has led to all misinterpretation of mind to consider them in some ways separate.

And since such writer in that “elsewhere” knows well he has not exceeded Paul in either experience nor revelation, he can only conclude he is but barely coming to what Paul already well understood, and makes no “mistake” about.

In truth, such “coming to” only helps with such clarity in regards to some of the other and many things said by Paul. How he could and would write and see things a certain way that on their face either appear to some question, or (God forbid!) even contradiction.

And, in this regard, I will leave off by saying to those who may casually say in this matter that all Paul has written is easy as pie to them, quickly understood (by them), and too plain to justify anything said above. I will leave them with the testimony of another apostle of same calling and of stature.

As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. (Peter’s referencing of Paul’s writings in 2 Peter 3)

Believing Paul and seeking to understand what he writes, even how he sees to such, is (though I am sure some would consider it so) not wrestling against him or his writings. For one either believes him a faithful herald or does not. And upon that basis alone…seeks to understand. But now I flirt with defending what calls for no defense “with all you get, get understanding”.

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

And Peter testifies of a wisdom:

And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;…(as also in all his epistles)…

Perhaps first we must apprehend this very thing before going too much farther, that is, to account the patience/longsuffering of our Lord is salvation… not “like it”, not sometime necessary to us, not a thing apart from salvation itself…but of its very nature to us.

Yes, perhaps starting there is best.

“What does your patience look like, Lord?”

“When did it start(?) if it has been “long” as in your suffering, was it at Golgotha and matters surrounding?” Gethsemane? When did you begin in patience “for” a something…we call salvation? Is patience “for” a thing? Like you do something and then wait for the consequence(s) of it…as we do?

Or is it something else? That you are the very all of what patience is…and it is not a thing only in exercise “until”?

Yes, these questions might well be better asked before proceeding.