A man’s car stalled in the heavy traffic as the light turned green. All his efforts to start the engine failed, and a chorus of honking behind him made matters worse. He finally got out of his car and walked back to the first driver and said, "I’m sorry, but I can’t seem to get my car started. If you’ll go up there and give it a try, I’ll stay here and blow your horn for you.”
--James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988), p. 396. Copied from Bible Illustrator 3.0 by Parsons Technology.
Annual cost of running red lights (in medical bills, car repairs, etc.): $7 billion
Average amount of time saved by running a red light: 50 seconds
-- U.S. Department of Transportation, cited in Hope Health Letter (2/96). "To Verify," Leadership. Copied from Bible Illustrator 3.0 by Parsons Technology.
Most people need a big dose of patience. We’re always in a hurry. We want things done yesterday.
When I was boy, we’d be helping Daddy work around the house or on my granddaddy’s farm and he would send one us to get something he needed. He would send us to get a tool, a five-gallon can of gas, fresh water for the water jug, or something. I can’t count how many times he would say as my brother or I was leaving, “Turn your hat around backwards so I’ll think you’re coming back.”
Daddy was wise enough to know that sometimes boys get distracted along the way. He also didn’t like waiting.
Well, I guess I come by my impatience honestly. In fact all of us do. Why? Because we learned it from our parents who learned it from their parents.
I’ve been thinking a lot about patience this week. I have read the thoughts of others on the subject and I have studied what the Bible teaches about patience. The reason we feel that we are impatient is because we do not have a full understanding patience. Being a patient person involves much more than waiting in line at Wal-Mart.
Take a look at your notes. Here are some thoughts about patience I found this week.
He that can have patience can have what he wills.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
One minute of patience, ten years of peace.
Greek Proverb
A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.
Dutch Proverb
Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself.
Saint Francis of Sales (1567-1622)
One moment of patience may prevent disaster; one moment of impatience may ruin a life.
Chinese Proverb
Patience is the ability to put up with people you’d like to put down.
Ulrike Ruffert
Patience is the companion of wisdom.
Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
Patience is the mother of expectation.
Henri J. M. Nouwen
Patience means waiting without anxiety.
Saint Francis of Sales (1567-1622)
Patience: accepting a difficult situation without giving God a deadline to remove it.
Bill Gothard
Teach us, O Lord, the disciplines of patience, for to wait is often harder than to work.
Peter Marshall (1902-1949)
The times we find ourselves having to wait on others may be the perfect opportunities to train ourselves to wait on the Lord.
(Joni Eareckson Tada)
Here is a definition of patience that I believe truly defines the patience the Apostle Paul is referring to in Galatians 5:22.
PATIENCE. An active endurance of opposition, not a passive resignation. Patience and patient are used to translate several Hebrew and Greek words. Patience is endurance, steadfastness, long-suffering, and forbearance.
(Holman Bible Dictionary)
Patience is more than the ability to wait in line without getting frustrated. Patience is much deeper than waiting in the doctor’s office without getting irritated. Patience is an active endurance of opposition, not a passive resignation.
Let’s take a look at what James teaches us about patience.
James 5:7-11 (NLT)
7Dear brothers and sisters, you must be patient as you wait for the Lord’s return. Consider the farmers who eagerly look for the rains in the fall and in the spring. They patiently wait for the precious harvest to ripen. 8You, too, must be patient. And take courage, for the coming of the Lord is near.
9Don’t grumble about each other, my brothers and sisters, or God will judge you. For look! The great Judge is coming. He is standing at the door!
10For examples of patience in suffering, dear brothers and sisters, look at the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11We give great honor to those who endure under suffering. Job is an example of a man who endured patiently. From his experience we see how the Lord’s plan finally ended in good, for he is full of tenderness and mercy.
Krishna Chandra Pal lived a life of "firsts." He worked near Serampore as a carpenter and heard of Jesus while working for some Moravians there. By the time he met Carey and the other Serampore missionaries, he had broken from formal Hinduism into a sect that embraced the theism and egalitarianism of Islam.
One day, while going to the river to bathe, Krishna slipped and dislocated his shoulder. He sent his children to the mission house, where he knew the medical doctor, John Thomas, was staying. As Thomas took care of the shoulder, he spoke with Krishna about the healing of his soul and gave him a tract in Bengali.
After that, Krishna called frequently at the mission. William Ward and Felix Carey read and discussed Scripture together. Soon Krishna told Thomas, "I am a great sinner, but I have confessed my sin and I am free!"
"Then I call you brother," Dr. Thomas said. "Come and let us eat together in love." This caused a great stir among the Indian servants, for by eating with Europeans, Krishna had broken caste.
Despite being mobbed and called "traitor!" by fellow Indians, Krishna was baptized. He was the first native convert in seven years of missionary labor and prayer.
Krishna’s wife and sister also made commitments to Christ, as did his four daughters; a neighbor, Gokul, and his wife; and a neighbor widow. They formed the first indigenous Christian community in that area, and not surprisingly, the group experienced spiritual growing pains: feuds, jealousies, and instances of immorality.
Eventually, Krishna Pal went on preaching tours with the missionaries. He was the first native missionary to Calcutta. There he preached at a dozen or more locations weekly and visited numerous homes to evangelize both poor families and servants of the rich. He was the first writer of Christian hymns in the Bengali language.
-- "William Carey," Christian History, Issue 36.
God has a great track record. If God has made a promise, we can count on him to come through. Ask Abraham, David, Solomon, Job, or Simeon. God is dependable. God is faithful.
Men and women throughout history can testify that we can be patient because God keeps his promise. Ask William Wilberforce.
For years William Wilberforce pushed Britain’s Parliament to abolish slavery. Discouraged, he was about to give up. His elderly friend, John Wesley, heard of it and from his deathbed called for pen and paper.
With trembling hand, Wesley wrote: "Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them stronger than God?
"Oh be not weary of well-doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery shall vanish away before it."
Wesley died six days later. But Wilberforce fought for forty-five more years and in 1833, three days before his own death, saw slavery abolished in Britain.
-- Carol Porter in Fresh Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching (Baker), from the editors of Leadership.
Another person who will testify to God’s faithfulness was Cordillia Gaither.
My grandmother patiently prayed for my grandfather to receive Jesus all her adult life. He finally prayed his sinner’s prayer and gave his life to the Lord…after my grandmother died. The day he went home to be with Lord, there was a grand reunion in heaven!
We do not understand why God works at the pace he does. We do not understand why God works the way he does. But we can know this. We can patiently wait on him, because God keeps his promises.
In verse 9 of James chapter 5, James encourages us to be patient with each other. If waiting on God is hard, this is even harder. Being patient with people doesn’t mean that we ignore their attitudes or behavior. It doesn’t mean that look the other way.
I get so impatient with Adam. I guess I’m paying for my raising. Adam is so easily distracted. I tell him to go to his room to get dressed and to come back upstairs once he’s fully dressed. That includes socks and shoes. Now, how long do you think it takes an eight-year old boy to get dressed? I continue doing whatever I’m doing. Fifteen minutes later, I realize Adam is not upstairs. So, I go downstairs to check on him. What’s he doing? He is distracted by something in his room. Sometimes it’s a toy. Occasionally he decides he needs to reorganize his sock drawer! So, what do I do? I get mad. Why? Because I have allowed myself to get impatient with a young boy whom I know gets distracted easily. The deeper reason I get impatient with him is because he’s just like me. And I want him to be better than me.
PATIENCE. An active endurance of opposition, not a passive resignation.
As a dad, do I wait patiently and give Adam more time to get dressed? No, I actively get involved in helping him stay focused on his task. So, we did a training session one night. I sent him to his room five times in a row to undress and dress again and set a time limit of three minutes. And you know what, he did it every time within the allotted time.
Are we going to get impatient with people? Yes. Do we sit by and do nothing while we wait on them? No.
Look again at the insight about patience given by Joni Erikson Tada. "The times we find ourselves having to wait on others may be the perfect opportunities to train ourselves to wait on the Lord."
Take a look at the passage from Romans that’s in your notes.
Romans 5:3-5 (NLT)
3We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they are good for us—they help us learn to endure. 4And endurance develops strength of character in us, and character strengthens our confident expectation of salvation. 5And this expectation will not disappoint us. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.
There once was an oyster whose story I tell,
Who found that sand had got under his shell,
Just one little grain, but it gave him much pain,
For oysters have feelings although they’re so plain.
Now, did he berate the working of Fate,
Which had led him to such a deplorable state?
Did he curse out the government, call for an election?
No; as he lay on the shelf he said to himself
"If I cannot remove it, I’ll try to improve it."
So the years rolled by as the years always do,
And he came to his ultimate destiny--stew.
And this small grain of sand which had bothered him so,
Was a beautiful pearl, all richly aglow.
Now this tale has a moral--for isn’t it grand
What an oyster can do with a morsel of sand;
What couldn’t we do if we’d only begin
With all of the things that get under our skin.
--James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988) p. 19.
The most common reference to patience in the Bible has to do with enduring pain, suffering, and persecution. This is why we call people who are the hospital, patients. Originally, patients were people who bore pain and suffering calmly or without complaint. Why do we grumble and complain when we suffer? At first we do so because we want to get well. We feel like we are losing precious time because we are not productive when we are sick. But when we are sick, we need rest. In fact, the reason most of us find ourselves in the hospital is because were are impatient people.
Closing
Most people agree that the most patient person, other than Jesus, in the Bible was Job. Job enduring sickness, disease, and grief. But Job knew the secret to being a patient man. And guess what? He didn’t keep it a secret. After hearing the news of the theft of his livestock, the death of his servants, and the death of his children, this is how Job responded.
Job 1:20-22 (NLT)
20Job stood up and tore his robe in grief. Then he shaved his head and fell to the ground before God. 21He said,
“I came naked from my mother’s womb,
and I will be stripped of everything when I die.
The LORD gave me everything I had,
and the LORD has taken it away.
Praise the name of the LORD!”
22In all of this, Job did not sin by blaming God.
The secret to patience is knowing that God is faithful and that God will keep his promises.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank you for being patient with us. Thank you for delaying your return so that we will have more time to ask Jesus to save us from our sin.
Thank you for being faithful. When we are tempted to be impatient, remind us of your promises and your faithfulness.
When we are impatient with others, remind us of your patience with us. Remind us of how long you waited for us to respond to your call. Remind us of all you did to invite us into a relationship with you.
We open our hearts to you for your Holy Spirit to come and dwell within us. Fill us with love, joy, peace, and patience. We pray in the name of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ.
