Someone has defined patience
as something we admire in the driver of
the car behind us but detest in the driver in front of us. The
dictionary defines patience as; "Bearing pains or trials calmly or
without complaint. Manifesting forbearance under provocation or strain.
Not hasty or impetuous."
If there is one hallmark
of our day it would have to be impatience.
Everywhere you look people are irritable, cross, tense and anxious. How
often recently have you heard the words, "please be patient?" I would
guess you've heard it a lot in many public places.
The person ahead of
you in the check-out line has written a check and
now the manager has to be paged to give authorization. The car ahead of
you is being driven by a slow-poke. The neighbors have a dog they let
bark all night long. The people behind you in the movie talk and
giggle. The man in front of you is cracking his knuckles. A restless
child is crying in church. Someone's cell phone is ringing. A phone
solicitor calls and wants to talk. The people in the restaurant are
talking too loud. The food server drops a tray of dishes right behind
you. The food you are served is not what you ordered, or is cold. The
ATM machine at the bank is out of order. A storm has knocked out your
satellite dish, right in the middle of your favorite program. We
encounter these nerve rattling situations practically every day.
The call to wait and to be patient is a very hard thing indeed, and
none of us escapes. Some people have long since given up trying to
develop patience and donít feel it's important. However the
Bible says
in Colossians 2:12, "Put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and
beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness and
longsuffering."
Longsuffering is another
word for patience.
Did you notice the verse says patience is to be put on like an article
of clothing? Before we leave the house in the morning we need to be
sure weíre fully dressed, and among other things, put on
patience.
I can't wait! This is a phrase we hear more and more these days.
The four year old can't wait to go to school.
The 7th grader can't wait for summer to come.
The school teacher can't wait for summer vacation.
The parent can't wait
till summer is over and kids go back to school.
The 15 year old can't
wait to get his restricted license, then 6 months for his Permanent
license.
The high school senior
can't wait to go off to college.
His parents can't wait
for him to leave.
The parents can't wait for graduation and the tuition bills to be over.
Then they can't wait for their young person to become a responsible
adult.
The young couple can't
wait for children to come.
The potential grandparents can't wait for grandchildren.
The young parents can't wait for their child to be potty trained.
"...They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." (Isaiah 40:31).
Patience is mentioned
often in the Bible, and in many cases it's the
deciding factor in a person's success or failure. It's imperative that
we start learning patience young in life, for it will take patience to
learn to read, write spell and do math problems. A person who
hasnít
learned patience will learn little else.
LET'S LOOK AT A FEW THINGS
THAT WILL ILLUSTRATE THE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF LACKING PATIENCE.
1. LACKING PATIENCE, WE HURT PEOPLE WHO WANT TO LOVE AND SUPPORT US
BECAUSE WE ARE TOO CRITICAL OF THEM.
More often than not,
friendships are destroyed because we lose patience
with people. Admittedly, some people are easier to have patience with
than others and we've all known folk who get on our last nerve. But
when we really stop and think about it; the problems we have with
people generally stem from losing patience with them.
If you are a parent you know it takes patience to raise a child. We
donít expect our children to act like adults. Maturity will
gradually
come but that will take many, many years.
I'm always amazed when I
read the story of Jacob in the Bible. In
Genesis 29 and 30 we read about this man who had so much patience that
he waited 20 years to win the hand of Rachael. During that time Jacob
had his salary changed ten times. He finally won Rachaelís hand
but not
before working and waiting for two decades. What a testament to the
power of patience.
Even the great apostle
Paul lost patience with John Mark because Mark
had left him once when the going got rough. However, later in 11
Timothy 4:11 he told Timothy, "Take Mark and bring him with thee for he
is profitable to me for the ministry." Not that Timothy had been right
in abandoning Paul, but in truth Paul had also been too impatient with
the young ministerial hopeful.
2. LACKING PATIENCE, WE START TO INGORE SMALL POSITIVE GAINS, FEELING
THEY ARENíT ENOUGH.
In Exodus 23:30 God told
the nation of Israel about the Promised Land
they were to conquer, "Little by little I will drive them out from
before thee, until thou be increased and inherit the land." Many times
even God does things in small steps. As a matter of fact, as much as we
all love miracles and should contend for them, most of the time God
works through a process.
Most of the progress
we've all made in our lives we've done in small
increments. That's how we learned to walk and talk. We'd try, fail, try
again, and finally with much endurance and pain, we would grow. But
with age, we tend to forget how hard won our earlier victories were and
start wanting things to go faster. Itís at this point that we
often
make the mistake of feeling that if the victories don't come quickly;
they're not worth the effort.
I can remember trying to
learn to play the guitar. It took years for my
fingers to get toughened up so the strings wouldnít cut them. I
can
also remember how hard it was for me to learn to ride a bicycle. You
remember that too. It took patience but once learned we never had to
learn it again. It may have taken a hundred tries for me to learn to
water ski but I finally pulled up. The man who drove the boat for me
should have been given a medal for his patience.
I heard the story about
man who stopped a stranger on the streets of
New York and asked him how to get to Carnegie Hall. The stranger said,
"practice, man practice." It's so true. Excellence takes time and
practice. A man once said to a great pianist, "I'd give everything to
be able to play like you do." The pianist answered, "That's what it
cost me."
If you've ever gone on a
diet, you know that losing weight is
difficult. Only in the advertisements do the pounds magically melt
away. In reality, its slow tedious work. We don't think about how long
it took us to put the weight on. We want the weight off as soon as we
start the diet, but we must learn to be satisfied with small steps.
Then, of all things, we hit plateaus and have to wait for them to pass
for our progress to continue.
Often when we say [I
certainly have said it] we're not good at
something like math or English, what we're really saying is that we
don't have the patience for it. If it doesn't happen speedily, we want
to give it up.
I started writing songs
as a boy but no one but close friends would
sing them until I was in my thirties. Obviously there are some things
that will come easier to us than other things; we are all born with
different talents and gifts. But too often we close the door on
possibilities, feeling we could never accomplish things because we
donít have patience to do the work. Itís important that
we remember
that we can't always do things on the first try, but if we have
patience we can prevail.
Hebrews 10:36 says, "For
ye have need of patience; that after ye have done the will of God, ye
might receive the promise."
3. BURN-OUT IS ANOTHER
CONSEQUENSE OF IMPATIENCE.
James 5; 7 says, Be patient therefore brethren, unto the coming of the
Lord, behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the
earth, and hath patience for it, until he receive the early and latter
rain.
The Bible often uses the
analogy of the farmer to describe the Kingdom
of God. What good would an impatient farmer do by going out and pulling
up the seed he's planted to see if it's growing? We know there is
seedtime and harvest. To put it another way, there is seed-time-and
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harvest.
No amount of angst will take the place of patience and time in
seeing a crop come up. Certainly a farmer would burn himself out if he
didnít believe in the process enough to be confident that with
proper
care and time, his crop will come to fruition.
Paul says in Romans 8:25, "But if we hope for that we see not, then do
we with patience wait for it."
If a person has enough energy to fret, stew, worry and have emotional
breakdowns, then they have enough energy if they will only get
prioritized, to see ultimate victory in anything that's in the will of
God for them to accomplish. Jesus only had three and a half years to
accomplish what he came to do but we never observe him in a hurry about
anything.
4. WE LOSE OUR GREATEST
OPPORTUNITY TO MINISTER WHEN WE'RE IMPATIENT.
Sir Francis of Assisi once invited a young ministerial student to go
with him to a certain city for ministry. The young man accepted, hoping
he'd have the chance to hear him preach and study his technique. When
they arrived in the small town, they proceeded to go from house to
house and visit widows and the sick and elderly. Toward the end of the
day, the young man asked when Sir Francis was going to preach. Sir
Francis answered him with these words: "Why we've been preaching all
day long. Haven't you heard the Bible passages that I've given to
people? Didn't you notice how I answered the questions of the people
and gave them of my time? Don't you realize that what we've done today
is the greatest type of ministry we could ever be involved in? We've
shown these folk, face to face the love of Christ."
What a profound answer that was. Many times we do more to bless people
with our loving patience than we do with all our contrived attempts at
preaching to them. The most powerful testimony we could have is to go
through stressful situations and not lose our temper or show any signs
of exasperation. You know you've ministered when someone asks you where
you get all your patience. As one preacher of yesterday said, "Preach
all you can and use words if you have to."
I don't hold myself up as a paragon of patience but recently I
saw an
example of how patience speaks to people. I was in line at the post
office one day and the line was quite long. People were grumbling and
fretting and the line was moving slowly. I noticed the man behind the
counter glance at me once or twice, though I was quite a ways back in
the line. When it finally came my time to purchase stamps, the man
looked at me puzzled and asked why I was in such a good mood. I was
nonplused and didnít really know what to say to him for a
moment. We
exchanged pleasantries and as I walked away, I realized that, though I
too was in a hurry, I hadn't griped and had a look of consternation on
my face. I can't truthfully say that I've always been patient but I saw
that day that patience, without any words being spoken, was enough to
minister to a postal worker.
5. IMPATIENCE WILL CAUSE US TO SUCCUMB TO THE SPIRIT OF OUR "THROWAWAY
SOCIETY" AND BECOME QUITTERS.
Why is abortion rife in America? Is it not the fact that people no
longer have the patience to wait 280 days for a child to be born? Not
to mention the years it will take to see that child become a self
sustaining adult? We certainly could point to other issues related to
abortion but what it boils down to, most of the time, is the new life
isnít welcome because people just donít have the patience
to see it
through.
Why is divorce so rampant in America? Is it not that couples are too
impatient to stay in a relationship and make it work? Consequently we
have throwaway homes, throwaway babies, and throwaway careers mostly
because people wonít stay with anything if it gets difficult. We
have
become a culture of impatient, non-finishers.
II Peter 1:5-8 says, "And beside this, giving all diligence add to your
faith virtue, and to your virtue knowledge, and to knowledge
temperence, and to temperance patience, and to patience Godliness; and
to Godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity. For
if these things be in you, and abound, they will make you that ye shall
neither be barren or unfruitful in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ."
6. IMPATIENCE WILL CAUSE US TO MISS GOD'S TIMING.
People quit jobs, pastors resign churches, teachers give up their
classes, students drop out of school, and business are shut down too
often by people who have simply run out of patience. Sadly they could
have prevailed in many cases, had they tried a little longer. Grave
yards are filled with people who had many more years to live, had they
had a few seconds more patience to slow down and avoid a collision.
Abraham and his wife Sarah went ahead of God when He had promised them
a miracle child and adopted carnal measures to bring Ishmael into the
world. Today a war is still going on in the Middle East because of a
family fight that ensued between two brothers when Abraham
didnít have
the patience to wait.
King Saul, in the Old Testament, ran ahead of Samuel and made an
offering unto God. He was plainly warned by God not to do this because
he was not a Priest. When Samuel finally arrived and learned what Saul
had done, he immediately told him that his Kingdom would be taken from
him and given to another leader. "How art the mighty fallen;" and all
because of impatience.
Patience has gotten a bad rap, because some people feel since it's an
alternative to positive action, and it's passive, lackadaisical and
ineffectual. However nothing could be farther from the truth.
7. PATIENCE
ISN'T A WEAK, APATHETIC, STOICAL RESIGNATION FROM THE ISSUES OF LIFE.
Rather, patience is a hopeful, watchful, waiting, full of confident
conviction that God is at work. It isn't giving up but rather a
courageous holding the fort until the battle is won. A mother who is
resting and waiting for her baby to be born hasn't given up; she is
patiently waiting for nature to take its course.
We must also remember that patience is an ongoing work of the Holy
Spirit and it takes time to develop. We are still under construction.
James 1:4 says, "But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be
perfect and entire, wanting nothing."
8. NOTE! PATIENCE
ISN'T A COMPROMISE; IT'S A POWERFUL WORKING FORCE THAT REAPS AWESOME
BENEFITS.
We will never have experience the opposition, the hostility, the
hardships which Jesus, the Captain of our Salvation experienced. Listen
to what the writer of Hebrews says about it.
"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of
witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that does so
easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set
before us, Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith;
who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising
the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For
consider him that endureth such hostility against himself lest ye be
wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood,
striving against sin."
So here's the pattern Christ set for us and the challenge we
face. We must;
# keep working,
# keep praying,
# keep trusting,
# keep believing,
# stay hopeful, and
# be patient.
The Christian life isn't a mountain hopping expedition where we skip
from one victory-peak to the next. We do have our mountain top
experiences but between two mountains there's always a valley. It's in
these valleys that God prunes and works with us to prepare us for our
next victory. Why the valleys? So that we won't arrive one day on a
mountaintop all puffed up with pride thinking we got there on our own.
We will all have valley time but when God puts us in a valley, he
watches over us like a hawk and we'll always know that he is close by.
David said; “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me.” (Psalm 23:4).
David also said; “I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined
unto me and heard my
cry. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay,
and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he put a
new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God; and many shall see it
and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.” (Psalm 40: 1-3).
When speaking of the last days, Jesus gave us a very important word of
advice when he said; in your patience, possess ye your souls.
(Matthew 21:19).
LET US ALL BE PATIENT, GOD IS AT WORK!
---- John Stallings
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