The live action anime, One Piece, just came out and it seems amazing. But in the middle of it Luffy learns an important lesson form his hero, Shanks. Why is Patience such an important lesson to learn? How does it apply to all of us? Join us as Dallas walks us through this discussion.
Patience is the Greatest Lesson | A One Piece Devotional – Geek Devotions
Transcription
The live-action version of One Piece is out there on Netflix, and honestly, it doesn’t look like it’s disappointing the fan base. In the middle of the show, though, there’s an interesting conversation between Luffy and his mentor, who gives him some great advice as he’s on his path to becoming a leader, becoming the pirate he’s meant to be. What’s that advice, and how does it apply to us? Join us today on Geek Devotions as we talk about it.
As I said in my intro, the live-action version of One Piece is out, and like I said, it’s not bad. I’m enjoying it. I legitimately enjoy it. I’m not the biggest One Piece fan. I’ve just started watching the anime recently, but I’m enjoying what I see on the screen. From what I’m hearing from the community, it’s a banger of a series you should also check out.
It is Luffy’s dream to become the greatest pirate ever, the pirate king, and he is passionate about it. But as a young man, he was not ready for that journey ahead of him. He thought at one point that to really be a pirate, he had to have scars because he saw all the other pirates having scars. He saw his mentor had scars, saying that he had the scars to prove that he had been on a journey. So Luffy scarred himself. Later, while being patched up, Luffy says he did it because he wanted to prove that he wasn’t scared. He was told very frankly, but very clearly, it’s not the scars that make you a man; instead, it’s the lesson you learned from them.
That, my friends, is an interesting conversation because Luffy is passionate. He wants to be a pirate. He wants to do whatever he can to do it, but he doesn’t understand what that means. He doesn’t understand the grander scale of it and what his mentor is trying to teach him. He’s like, look, there’s a journey ahead of you. You have to be patient.
We all have something that we’re passionate about, something that we want to achieve. Maybe it’s a certain kind of job. Maybe it’s a position, a job you have. Maybe it’s simply the status of being a mother or a father. Some things are inside of you that you’re like, I crave this. I desire to be this. And you’re working for that. But as you progress towards whatever’s ahead of you, sometimes it becomes frustrating because you feel like you’re not progressing fast enough. You’re not getting to the point that you need to be. And that begins to play on the mind, and you begin to struggle. You begin to think, well, maybe there’s a shortcut. Maybe I need to do this. Maybe you need to do something drastic, like when Luffy scarred himself because he thought that’s what it took to be a pirate. But the reality is that the journey of getting to where we need to be is just as important as arriving.
As we grow and learn to progress to whatever the job it is, to be whatever it is that God has for us in the future, those lessons we learn in life make us better at those things when we arrive. But as we do this, again, it can grow on us. We can become weary. We can become frustrated, but we’re reminded of something in the scriptures. Galatians 6:9:
Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season, we will reap if we do not give up.
Galatians 6:9 (English Standard Version | ESV)
This is not a long conversation today, guys. Don’t grow weary while doing good. There are things that God put inside of you: passions and desires to achieve certain great things. Do not give up on trying to reach us. For some of you, you’ve been trying so hard for so long, and it’s frustrating. You want to give up. I understand. I really do. But don’t get weary. If it’s something that God has indeed put inside of you, continue moving forward, continue walking it out, continue to seek God’s face in the process, and continue to do what you need to do to achieve what God has put in front of you.
I’m not talking from a position like I have everything in the world. There are things or passions God has put inside of me. Some goals are in front of me that I’ve yet to achieve that I want to walk in and have, not just for myself, but for other greater purposes. And I understand the frustration. I understand the weirdness. Just a few weeks ago, I found myself frustrated because there were things I wanted to do. I wanted to walk in, but I was not able to do it. I was mentally drained, and it took friends and people to come around me to encourage me to go, “Dallas, it’s okay. One step at a time. Walk this out. You got this.”
You need community. You need people in your life who can do that regularly to help you walk this out. If you don’t have a community, I want to encourage you to find one. We did a devotion several months ago during anime April that was based around this about why Luffy is the greatest pirate captain and a great leader. But a lot of that devotion revolved around the idea of community. We need that. We need a community to surround us, to help us so that when we are starting to become weary, we can be strengthened, and we can walk in what God has for us.