Lord give me patience. I mean, I also want strength, courage, and everything else, but right now, a double portion of patience will be great. Truth be told we never ask for patience before those alarm bells for the ‘longsuffering-needed!’ situations arise.
You ask for an extra quota of that good stuff, when you’re driving, when you are helping your child revise for a test and have found yourself stuck on the same math problem for the past hour, and when a co-worker knows the exact recipe to move your agitation needle a little higher. “Lord, give me patience”, is a common prayer, without which our situations will surely push us over the edge.
The renewal we experience through this salvation journey gives us an overflow of the Fruit of the Spirit, which is Patience. Humans are easily propelled to excesses, prone by nature to react instead of thoughtfully responding; therefore, we need patience. Even the simplest occurrences in life can irritate us, and patience is the catalyst behind our ‘relax, breathe, and wait’ response.
I don’t like being patient for things I want immediately, but it’s ultimately the sole course when we cannot change the circumstance. I have sat in traffic from work on my way home and have genuinely desired for the car to have BumbleBee capabilities so that I could just transform and walk past the sea of red lights ahead of me. I’ve even wished I owned a helicopter to avoid traffic. I or maybe we, want answers now, we want to know the outcome now, and we want things to change now. Like a spoilt child, my heart has achingly said ‘I want what I want when I want it’ and that timeframe is never in the future. When has that frustrating longing ever really changed the situation and how often does a rash decision to get whatever we want have a good long-term outcome? Thank God for His grace that so mercifully covers our naivety. The fact that we can force nothing forward, is enough reason to invite this virtue of patience.
Patience is never for its own sake. God doesn’t give it so that we develop patience just for the sake of having it. So much more happens while we go digging to pull patience out from way down at the bottom of the Spirit’s Fruit basket. Employing patience is also God inviting you to relook at the situation for which you want His urgent intervention. In circumstances when we are pursuing a particular path and are continually met with obstruction and delay, it is a good time to ask for direction.
During my undergraduate study whenever I was in an exam, I would carefully read the question, and map out my answer before I began to write my answer. While I was writing, I’d take a few quick lookbacks at the question to ensure that I was answering what was asked. A similar exercise happens when I am obstructed, especially those weird and incomprehensible obstructions, I stop and ask God whether this obstacle requires me to take a different path physically, to change my way of thinking, or even the desire itself.
Patience is the posture and temperament we must adopt while we wait and it is a critical pause to obtain God’s direction. Traffic may be God’s redirection to spend some time in prayer or catch up on a podcast. The tedious revision with your child may be the direction from God to change the method of engagement instead of doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
Whenever you feel like you’re exerting all your energy pushing against a door or trying to get over a wall with no success, go into your basket and look for patience. Two things happen when you do, you acknowledge God’s omniscience over the situation and the outcomes, and because of that, you get to enquire whether to keep pushing in the way you have, to rest or listen for his new direction of how you will overcome.
Patience is something we know we need to have because anarchy would reign if people did not practice restraint. Road rage is real in those traffic situations, abuse becomes an option when frustration wins over because of stubborn children, and criminal and unethical behavior rear their ugly heads when people don’t get their desires immediately.
Patience is a virtue of preservation that helps us to make good decisions and causes us to lean into God on what is the right thing to do or path to take when we constantly encounter obstacles.
Be patient (the Godly character) and wait (the posture of listening); let God tell you what to do next.
Love Ya!
Krystal Baynes-Hoseinee
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