Constance and the patience of Job

A strange title for a blog. Quirky. Perhaps even downright weird.

‘Constance’ is a traditional girl’s name and ‘the patience of Job’ is an old English phrase from the King James Bible. The phrase comes from the New Testament book of James chapter 5 verse 12 and refers to how the main character in the Old Testament Bible book, a man named Job, coped with a terrible trial in his life. The phrase has passed into contemporary use as an expression to describe displaying extraordinary patience with someone or some circumstance. 

What does a girl’s name and a phrase from the bible have in common?

If you read the book of Job in the Bible you will quickly see that Job was anything but patient! In contemporary versions of the bible the ‘patience of Job’ is rendered the ‘endurance of Job’. I think an even better rendering would be the ‘constancy of Job’ because ‘constancy’ is part of the meaning of the original Greek word used in the book of James. 

‘Constancy’ reminds me of part of the old English hymn “To be a pilgrim”: “He who would valiant be 'gainst all disaster, Let him in constancy follow the Master”.

Dictionary.com defines ‘constancy’ as a noun meaning “the quality of being unchanging or unwavering, as in purpose, love, or loyalty; firmness of mind; faithfulness. Uniformity or regularity, as in qualities or conditions; invariableness.” It’s a hugely important quality for a Christian to have.

The meaning of the name ‘Constance’ refers to that quality of constancy and admires that quality. Not many people are named ‘Constance’ these days. But whatever our name is we all need constancy as a quality if we want to be Christians.

That leaves us with the obvious question. Do we want to be a Christian? To make that choice the very best place to start is by reading a Bible. They are available literally everywhere.