December 28th Patience Part 2

Two weeks ago we started a two part discussion of patience.

God desires us to be patient with ourselves and those around us – even the difficult people we don’t like. Today we look at various places in the Bible in order to grow in patience.

Let’s begin by looking at the patience of God.

Peter writes (3:9), “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.”

Impatient people are quick to judge, but God does not judge quickly. Instead he waits patiently for us to choose to turn from wrongdoing and receive his love and forgiveness.

Paul writes to judgmental impatient people when he says in Romans (2:4), “do you despise the riches of God’s kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?”

God shows patient love even to despicable people.

He can do this because of his character of love and his place in eternity. God is love, and love is patient. It doesn’t force its way on people, but constantly and consistently shows love and waits patiently for love to be returned. In the face of unrequited love, God waits…

God dwells in eternity. For him a day is ten thousand years. He lives in a world where time is not scarce – in eternity time doesn’t exist as we know it. This maximizes God’s potential for patience.

God is patient because he is love and he dwells in eternity. We rightly praise God for his patience and we can use his example to help us gain patience with ourselves and others.

I don’t know about you, but my problem with impatience begins with myself. I’m actually less patient with myself than I am with other people. Let me give you an example.

Karen is our secretary here at church and like every other human I know she gets the occasional illness. She faithfully reports in and tells me when she’s ill. Guess what I tell her. I express genuine concern and tell her to take good care of herself and not to worry about work. I tell her, “We have you covered.”

When I get sick, I tell myself things I’d never tell Karen. “Get to work! You don’t have time to be sick! People are relying on you; you can’t be sick! If you admit to being ill people will think you’re weak. Fight through it and drive in!”

Can we at least be as patient with ourselves as we are to others?

How patient are you with yourself?

Is there something you want to do, but won’t because of how much time it will take?

In talking with people about how they want to spend their lives of work I often hear impatient answers.

“I’d like to be a teacher, but I haven’t gone to college, and that would take me at least four years!”

“I’d like to get into business, but any good position requires an MBA and that would take me at least two years.”

“I’d like to become a counselor, but it would take me six years to get the education required.”

2 years, 4 years, 6 years are nothing in light of our entire lives. If God has given us a desire in our hearts, what amount of time is too much to spend pursuing the goals he’s given? Is 20 years too much? Is 50?

We see time as a scarce commodity – as a limited resource to be spent wisely. But isn’t this a carnal view of time? What would be a more spiritually accurate view of time?

We talk about receiving “eternal life” in Christ. Normally we view this eternal life beginning when we die, but it starts now. I mean, if death is only a transition into a different type of living, don’t we live eternally now?

Christ defeated death in the resurrection, so when we enter into his life we enter the realm of eternal living. We gain an eternal kind of life now.

If we live in Christ, time is not scarce, it’s abundant.

Being sick isn’t a waste of time – God can move in us even when we’re ill. We need not worry about how long pursuing God’s mission for us takes if we have an eternal view of this life.

One final note on being patient with ourselves; Christians have always been people on the way. We are works in progress. God’s patience and gentleness allows us to go through the process of character development, and it’s a bumpy road.

When we fail, instead of impatiently saying, “How could I have done that?!” and beating ourselves up, we can have God’s perspective of ourselves – his love and patience. We can simply say, “I’m not perfect yet. I still need God’s grace every day.”

In patient self-love, we can ask meaningful questions about our failures. What causes me to mess up? What do I need from God to avoid this error in the future? What change is required?


Just as we attempt to view ourselves in the light of God’s patience and eternity, we can view other people in the same light and be more patient with them.

Our patience with other people is tested in a variety of ways.

One truth of personality theory reveals that not everyone gets along naturally. Some people will rub you the wrong way. Certain people will annoy you. Because you are the way you are and they are the way they are, you will not like them.

Our local body of Christ will have people in it that you don’t like. For the sake of unity, we must be patient.

Paul writes (Ephesians 4:1-3) I…beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Each of us will have people we must simply “bear with.” Pride makes us attempt to change them to make them the way we want them to be, but patience causes us to bear with them.

When we find ourselves in the presence of someone we do not naturally like we can do several patient things to maintain peace and unity.

We can let them be who they are. We can listen to their message behind the things that irritate us.

When in the presence of a person who irritates us we should always pause before speaking and choose our words carefully in order to maintain peace.

We don’t need to be friends with everyone, but we must maintain our unity as one Body in Christ.


Another test of patience comes when people disappoints us.

After telling us to clothe ourselves with patience, Paul writes in Colossians (3:13) “Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

We can’t expect perfect consistency from people. We know ourselves to be imperfect and continually receive God’s forgiveness. Because of this, when someone disappoints us, we can respond with patient forgiveness. We can acknowledge we are all people on the way and forgive even as God has forgiven us.


Not getting our way also tests patience.

The great “love chapter” in 1st Corinthians puts it this way: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful…”

Love does not use force – physical, psychological, intellectual, or even spiritual force to get its own way. If we force our way, we love impatiently and imperfectly.

I learned the hard way that love does not insist on its own way while serving as the Associate Pastor of Redeemer Covenant Church. One day I got a phone call from someone we’ll call George.

He wanted my support in banning women from the Sunday evening basketball game. He didn’t like that a woman from the community had been coming to play. It wasn’t that she didn’t play well…in fact she was better than most of the guys...It was that she was a she.

He argued for the importance of men getting together for fellowship without women present. He feared that she would be uncomfortable playing with a group of guys. He asked, “What if someone guarding her accidentally touched her inappropriately?”

I disagreed with him vehemently. I told him, “It’s great that several people from the community are coming to the church and it doesn’t bother me that one of them is a woman. If she is comfortable, she should not be excluded.”

I argued based on the mission of the church. I even argued based on the Kingdom of God.

Because George was in charge of the event, I told him he could do whatever he wanted, but that he would be making an un-Christian decision if he forbade her from coming to play.

I really put George in his place…and I lost a friend. I insisted on my own way and created disunity. I exploded a small issue and made it powerful enough to divide a community.

I knew I was right, but my response was so wrong.


Patience demands that we do not insist on our own way. I could have listened patiently, expressed my view quietly, and let him decide. Instead I attempted to control another person. Patience does not insist on its own way.


A patient person also knows that waiting can be an act of faithfulness. I’m a man of action. I want to do something to help, but sometimes being present and waiting is most needed.

The powerlessness we feel when someone is grieving a loss sometimes prompts us to impatiently propose a solution. We say ridiculous things. If someone grieves the loss of a boy or girl friend, what do we say? “There are other fish in the sea.” Do you know how stupid that sounds? They don’t want just any fish. They want the one they just lost.

What wisdom do we give to the person grieving the loss of a loved one? “Tis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.” Craziness! Sure it’s true, but it doesn’t ease the pain of loss. Truth isn’t always a healing balm.

Grieving or depressed people need our presence, not our wisdom or advice.

Parker Palmer, the great educator and teacher of teachers recounts a story of a deep depression he found himself in and his friends’ responses.

“Various friends tried to rescue me with well-intentioned encouragement and advice: “Get outside and enjoy the sunshine,” or “You have such a good life – why be depressed?” or “I know a book that might really help you.” For all their good intentions, these friends made me even more depressed.
They did not understand what I was going through, did not understand that there was no easy “fix.” Their advice served only to distance them from me, leaving me even more isolated.

“In the midst of my depression I had a friend who took a different tack. Every afternoon at around four o’clock he came to me, sat me in a chair, removed my shoes, and massaged my feet. He hardly said a word, but he was there, he was with me. He was a lifeline for me, a link to the human community and thus to my own humanity. He had no need to “fix” me. He knew the meaning of compassion” (The Active Life, 85).

Palmer’s friend patiently abided with him. He didn’t try to force his agenda on him. He didn’t try to position himself above Palmer as the expert advice giver. He didn’t shower him with wisdom; he patiently showed love.

Conclusion

We worship a God of profound patience. He is love and he dwells in eternity. Because of this, he does not judge quickly. He reveals his love to us and waits patiently for us to respond appropriately.

God asks us to have his perspective on time as we live in Him. We live in Christ eternally so we can know the abundance of time and remain patient with ourselves and others.

God desires us to “bear with” people we don’t naturally like in order to maintain the unity of his community. We can offer patient forgiveness to people because God has patiently forgiven us.

Faithfulness sometimes demands patient waiting and a ministry of presence. Sometimes people just need our availability, not our advice or rescue.

The only way we can be patient for a lifetime is if we know the patience and love of God.