Give Me Patience

One hour film developing, same day grocery pick-up, meals delivered in a dash to your door; no wonder patience is a vanishing virtue! We can get almost anything within a few hours these days. Social media allows us knowledge of world events nearly instantaneously and even on the highway where the speed is posted as 70 mph, people drive much faster than the legal limit. Nothing is fast enough for us anymore. I think this leads to expecting God’s timeline to work in accordance with the world’s adopted timeline.

Patience is mentioned approximately 70 times in scripture according to biblical scholars so it must be important for us to have patience, understand patience and exhibit patience. My husband told me just a few days ago as I was driving into town behind a slower car to back off and have some patience! This devotion is definitely directed at me.

Patience doesn’t come overnight; it is a learned behavior through God’s power as we see in Colossians 1:11, “by being strengthened through his glorious might so that you endure everything and have patience;” (CEB) What an example of patience and endurance we see in Job! In James 5:11, we find these words, “You have heard of the endurance of Job. And you have seen what the Lord has accomplished, for the Lord is full of compassion and mercy.” (CEB)

Patience is one of the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22) and in Ecclesiastes 7:9 we see this warning, “Don’t be too quick to get angry because anger lives in the fool’s heart.” (CEB)

My desire is to show patience and be slow to anger but it only comes from depending on Jesus because I don’t have those qualities within myself naturally. Looking back to Colossians 1:11 we are reminded where endurance and patience comes from and that it is part of God’s redemptive work within us as a way of perfecting our patience. James 1:3-4 teaches this; take a look at these words from the passage, “After all, you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Let this endurance complete its work so that you may be fully mature, complete, and lacking in nothing.” (CEB)

Run With Patience by Margaret Cagle, although it is a poem can also be our prayer today:

In life's race that is set before us, May the Lord lead us on our way. May we run our race with patience, And God's holy will, may we obey. Let us not run ahead of God's will. It may cause us to falter on our way. The weights of sin will slow us down, So in God's holy will, let us stay. Waiting on God to renew our strength, Let us run life's race as a saint. With patience, we must wait on God, And let us not be weary nor faint. Christian, giving up is not an option, Though trials may make it seem longer. Remember, tribulation worketh patience, And testing tends to make us stronger.