Patience- the quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like. -Dictionary.com
I like this definition! Seems like patience is something Christ followers should have down! According to Paul:
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! (Gal 5:22-23 NLT)
Notice that patience is a fruit. You can't decide to just have more of it! That would be like tying a bunch of apples on an oak tree and calling it an apple tree!
The Bible gives us so much to consider about this idea of patience. Here’s how God’s spirit produces patience in us:
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. (James 1:2-4 NKJV)
Trials are tools God uses to produce the fruit of patience in us. It is the work of the Spirit in our lives that forms Christ in us!
Remember those t-shirts and bumper stickers that proclaimed ‘Be patient, God isn’t finished with me yet’?
Well I never cared for them much- I think a lot of Christians hide behind this slogan to cover their lack of progress, growth or maturity.
The Scriptures do however, remind us that we are not in control, we are on God’s timetable.
Philippians 1:6 The Voice (VOICE)
6 I am confident that the Creator, who has begun such a great work among you, will not stop in mid-design but will keep perfecting you until the day Jesus the Anointed, our Liberating King, returns to redeem the world.
I receive this word as an encouragement to pursue all that God has for me. True, I need to be patient and not get ahead of Him in the process, but I also need to be aware that things can get in the way.
I really enjoyed Mark’s word to us last week!
I especially appreciated his illustration of the seed! We like to plant things- like flowers, vegetables, churches, etc… We know that if we put seeds in the ground, with the appropriate water and fertilizer, and at the right time, after awhile, something will pop up from the ground.
Further still down the road, the plant will begin to bear fruit. Like Mark suggested last time, it would be foolish to look for ears of corn the day after planting the seed. Fruit requires growth, growth requires (among other things) time.
Passing time requires PATIENCE.
James 5:7-8 (VOICE)
7 For this reason, my brothers and sisters, be patient as you wait for the return of the Lord. Look! The farmer knows how to wait patiently for the land to produce vegetables and fruits. He cannot harvest a freshly planted seed. Instead, he waits for the early and the late showers to nourish the soil. 8 You need this same kind of patience, so in the meantime, strengthen your resolve because the Lord will be coming soon.
I’m no farmer, but I know the farmer doesn’t merely toss out some seeds and then go sit on the porch and sip lemonade. There’s endless weeding, fighting off predators like birds and insects and thieves. There’s irrigation and fertilizers, etc… James states that the kind of patience we need is to ‘strengthen our resolve’! He is direct in his insistence ' you NEED patience! To get it we need RESOLVE:
Resolve: doggedness, determination, tenacity, firmness.
No room for couch potatoes here!
And James continues in verse 9:
9 Brothers and sisters, don’t waste your breath complaining about one another. If you judge others, you will be judged yourself. Be very careful! You will face the one true Judge who is right outside the door.
Interesting placement of this word on complaining and judging in the middle of speaking about patience, eh?
10 The prophets who declared the word of the Lord are your role models, my brothers and sisters, for what it means to live patiently in the face of suffering.
11 Look, we bless and honor the memory of those who persevered under hardship. Remember how Job endured and how the Lord orchestrated the triumph of his final circumstances as a grand display of His mercy and compassion. James 5:7-11 (VOICE)
We're reminded of the prophets and Job as examples for patience. I think the Job thing is a killer!
Patience, perseverance under hardship, during the growth process can be very difficult in this ‘instant gratification’ era. Like Mark said last week- often times the growth we desire to see is happening under the surface.
1 Corinthians 15:36 The Voice (VOICE)
36 Don’t be a fool! The seed you plant doesn’t produce life unless it dies. Right?
Wow! So patience requires something- something has to die!
Me growing into Christlikeness requires me dying to MY-likeness!
Contrasting the patience of a farmer, we are also given the example of the patience of a runner:
Let us run with patience (Hebrews 12:1).
To run with patience is a very difficult thing.
Running suggests the absence of patience, the eagerness to reach the goal.
We commonly associate patience with ‘have a seat’, ‘take a Chill’, RELAX, Don’t worry, be happy!
There is a patience which I believe to be harder
--the patience that can run.
To be still in the time of grief, to be quiet under the stroke of adverse fortune, requires a great strength;
I know of something that implies a strength greater still:
This More difficult Patience is the power to keep moving under a burden; to have a great weight at your heart and still be able to run; to have a deep anguish in your spirit and still perform the daily task. It is a Christ like thing!
The hard thing is most of us are called to exercise our patience, not in our easy chair, but out in the street!
We are called not to bury our sorrows and suffer silently, but in active service--in the marketplace, in the workplace, in our social activity, in the contribution to another's joy.
There is no bearing of sorrow so difficult as that; it is the "running with patience."
This was the patience of Christ!
It was sometimes waiting and other times, a running.
A waiting for the goal but a doing of the lesser work meantime.
We see him at Cana turning the water into wine to meet a mundane human need.
We see Him in the desert feeding a multitude with bread just to relieve a temporary hunger. All, all the time, he was bearing a mighty grief, unshared, unspoken.
Some ask for a rainbow in the cloud to be reminded of his promises; but let’s ask more from Him!
Let's ask rather that we would be, in our dark cloud, ourselves the rainbow -- to minister to others' joy and needs. Our patience will be perfect when it can work in the Vineyard bearing fruit in it’s time!
Be patient! God’s not finished with me yet?
But let that patience be with our roots actively growing down into Jesus!
Let it be life in motion, running the race! Amen?
