Meditations on The Fruit of the Spirit - Patience
It’s early January as I write article four in the series, Meditations on the Fruit of the Spirit. It still gets dark by five o’clock, and a polar vortex has taken up residence with howling wind and below freezing temperatures. How fitting that our Bible study this month will cover the fruit of Patience.
So often we pray asking for patience. How urgent it seems that we get it right away! When I think of needing patience, I think of standing in long lines or sitting in traffic or dealing with small children or unexplained updates to my phone. Once again, just as in the first three studies of Fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, and peace, a comprehensive look at patience in scripture has shown me that Biblical patience is so much more. The truth is, in those traffic jams and technology snafus and family chaos, what I more accurately need is self-control. And, we will study that soon!
What is patience as we read about it in God’s word? Probably the first thing that comes to mind is “the patience of Job.” James used Job and the prophets as examples to us of endurance (James 5:7-11). Job was not attempting to remain calm as life’s circumstances became challenging and annoying. Job was faced with inexplicable, irreversible tragedy, and excruciating pain. He complained; he even questioned God. But he did not “curse God and die.” He did not reverse what he knew to be true about God in response to his conditions. He did not lose faith.
I came upon two scriptures that serve as a picture of patience. In the same passage where he mentions Job, James uses a farmer to illustrate patience: “The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains.” We understand this. The farmer plants the seed, then he must stand back. He cannot control time or the weather. Yet he diligently tends the crop in any way he can. He waits and works and hopes for what he cannot see but knows is coming.
A similar illustration of patience is in Luke 8, in the Parable of the Sower: “As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.” The hearts of the rocky soil “believe for a while,” the thorny soil chokes out the seed “as they go on their way.” The good soil represents hearts that are honest and good and willing to bear fruit with patience. Growing crops, bearing fruit in the physical and spiritual sense, is a slow, faith-filled process.
What does this working patience look like? It looks like the five wise virgins, waiting, ready to honor the groom at whatever time He comes, keeping their lamps trimmed and ready. It looks like the men given two and five talents, who invest diligently, knowing the Master will return to receive what is His (Matt 25:14-28).
As I reflect on my daily-life moments when my patience is tried, I realize it’s when I’m being asked to wait when I would rather go, or know, or receive, or complete. And while it’s good to ask the Lord to help me maintain my composure and behave kindly in those situations, Biblical patience asks me to wait for the Lord in whatever circumstance I find myself: wait for His will, His way, His plans, His timing.
Wait for the Lord. Am I in fear of my enemies? “To you, o Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God, in you I trust; let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me. Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame” (Psalm 25:1-3).
Am I dismayed at the wickedness of the world? “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” (Psalm 27:13-14).
Has pain, or grief, or poverty, or loneliness become so overwhelming that I am trying to hold on to hope and not despair? “They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31).
Waiting for the Lord comes with promise - of deliverance, of glory and inheritance, of renewed strength. Isaiah 30:18 says, “For the Lord is a God of justice, blessed are all those who wait for Him.” But that’s the end of the verse. Here is the beginning: "Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore He exalts Himself to show mercy to you.” What a profoundly humbling thought, that Jehovah God waits for me, that His intent is to show me mercy!
God is patient? He waited 100 years while Noah built the ark, before He sent the flood. He waited 400 years to give the Canaanites time to repent. He waited, taught, and pleaded, throughout the history of the Israelite nation as they rejected Him. He held back His wrath and gave His son’s life as the payment for our sin.
Do you picture God as a patient father? Close your eyes and imagine the father of the prodigal son in Luke 15, gazing down the road that for so long had offered no hope: “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” The words, “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” are used to describe God seven times in scripture.
In response to this patience, how can I be anything but faithful? Read Romans 2:4: “Or do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” And now read verse 5: “But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.”
We miss the divine opportunity to know and serve a gracious, merciful, loving God if we only serve out of fear of His wrath. But we are fools if we don’t recognize that His mercy, righteousness and justice demand His wrath on those that reject Him.
And now I read with a changed heart the commands for us to be patient in our lives and with each other: “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer” (Romans 12:12).
“...admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all” (1 Thess 5:14).
From long, cold January nights, to days of confinement with a family sharing the flu, from wondering what’s in store for me next year, to discouragement at sin around me, from a time of crushing grief, to a time of an aging body and mind…I will continue to be patient: “But as for me, I will look to the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation.” Lord, come quickly.