Fruits of the Sprit, Part Four: Seeing Patience in Another Light

“But the fruit of the Spirit [the result of His presence within us] is love [unselfish concern for others], joy, [inner] peace, patience [not the ability to wait, but how we act while waiting], kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature together with its passions and appetites. If we [claim to] live by the [Holy] Spirit, we must also walk by the Spirit [with personal integrity, godly character, and moral courage—our conduct empowered by the Holy Spirit]. We must not become conceited, challenging or provoking one another, envying one another.” (Galatians 5:22-26, AMP)

Patience. No one likes talking about patience. Love? Joy? Peace? Those are all Fruits of the Spirit that people love talking about, but patience? Pass.

In truth, patience is a hard virtue to work on, because it’s one season of life’s seasons we’d all rather avoid; but at the same time, we can’t cultivate patience within ourselves if we are never challenged to wait. 

There are plenty of characters in the Bible who didn’t want to wait either. Sarah didn’t want to wait for her promised child from God, so she hooked her husband up with her maidservant to make a surrogate child. Shocker, that didn’t work out so great. King David didn’t wait on his feelings for Bathsheba, and instead acted on them, got her pregnant, and killed her husband so she could marry him. No surprise, that sounds even worse.

A lot of the time, impatience springs up out of our own feelings of envy. We want something, we see someone else who has what we want, and all of a sudden waiting on God for our heart’s desire seems impossible. Why? Because in our flesh, it’s a struggle to see someone else enjoy something we want for ourselves: a spouse or a healthy relationship, a baby or a family, a house, a car, a career… the list goes on and on.

The truth is, some of us don’t like talking about patience because we are sitting in our own seasons of waiting and failing at it miserably. Why? Because it doesn’t come natural to our flesh. We see it, we like it, we want it, we get it. That’s the mentality this world drills into us from the day we’re born. But God is the ultimate waiter, which is weird, since He is, ya know, God. He can bend time, space, and possibility to His will and literally make it happen. But take a look at His track record.

He waited, from the beginning of time in the Garden of Eden– from the time of the fall– to send us His Son, Jesus. He waited even longer for the cross and the empty tomb. Even still, He waits for the time He has appointed to send His Son again and crush the devil’s head for good. He’s God, couldn’t He just have done that back at the moment of the Fall? Couldn’t He just have sacrificed Jesus then and there so Adam and Eve could have their salvation? Couldn’t He have just crushed the devil’s head and forgiven man’s sin then and there? I mean, He’s God. All things are possible for Him.

But He didn’t, which means that for all the wisdom He has, waiting served a higher purpose. Going through all this time has meant something to Him. It means that YOU could get to experience salvation, God’s love, the joy of knowing Him, and the peace that comes from being held by Him. Yes, God’s waiting even means that you would know His goodness and love towards you by refining your own patience as He prepares that thing you so desperately want. And perhaps, in that waiting, you have gotten to see and know God on a much deeper level because at some point, we have to realize that the key to patience is to take our sole focus off of those things we’re waiting on and putting it completely on Him. 

Just in case you missed it, our scripture verse says that patience is a Fruit of the Spirit, but it also clarifies something: the ability to wait is not what makes patience a Fruit of the Spirit. Instead, it is how we act WHILE we are waiting. Are we really waiting on the Lord, or are we secretly looking for an opportunity to take control for ourselves and shorten our wait? Are we celebrating others in our waiting, or are we stewing enviously over what we don’t have? Are others seeing Jesus in our waiting, or are they seeing our imperfect nature?

That’s what separates our waiting out of necessity from true patience as a Fruit of the Spirit. There are many examples of impatience in the Bible, but there are even more examples of Godly patience. If you’re lacking a soulmate today, remember that Ruth waited for Boaz until the arrangements could be made for him to claim her as his wife. If you’re yearning for a baby of your own, remember Hannah and Elizabeth, who patiently prayed for God to make a way. If you’re waiting for a family member to return and reconcile deep wounds from the past, remember the father of the prodigal son, who watched the horizon for his son to come home. If you’re dying for a promotion at work, remember David, who waited decades to go from shepherd boy to King of Israel. Everywhere you look, in almost every situation, there is someone in the Bible who was in the same waiting pattern as you, and what all these people have in common is that they waited for God to do it.

And Godly patience doesn’t come easy. It never does. But the one thing it always does is stretch our faith and strengthen it. Why? Because if we choose to use our season of waiting as an opportunity to hide ourselves away in the Lord, allowing HIM to be what we’re waiting for, then we are using the time constructively by spending it growing nearer to our God. Through that, not only are we blessed when the waiting is over– not only are we strengthened in our faith– but we are also given a testimony to others struggling with their own patience.

The advice is probably as old as time: “It was worth the wait.” Yes, most of the time what that saying means is that whatever you were waiting for was worth all that time waiting, because nothing else could compare with the object of all that waiting. But today, let’s look at it differently. What if “it was worth the wait” actually meant that the wait was worth it because it rooted us more deeply in our relationship with Christ? What if it meant that a stronger bond with God made the wait itself worth it, along with the sweet rewards of the wait?

“Be still before the Lord; wait patiently for Him and entrust yourself to Him; Do not fret (whine, agonize) because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.” (Psalm 37:7, AMP)

That, in and of itself summarizes exactly what we’re talking about: Waiting is an agonizing process, but instead of hyperfocusing on the product of the wait, envying every other person that seems to so easily have what we want, let’s set our eyes on the Lord. If you’re struggling to cultivate patience like God, then be still and ENTRUST yourself to Him. What does that mean? It means to lean your whole self on Him, trusting that he will protect, care for, and ultimately provide. 

The waiting doesn’t have to be agony. Friend. It can be sweet and worthwhile, if only you can learn to put your attention on the unchanging, ever-available, good Father that is our God.