Patience--Learning to Wait
by Gene Easley
Patience is an attribute long sought for but seldom easily obtained. But there have been many times when there was a need for patience, when I didn’t realize that it was what I needed. I thought I needed everything else. Patience would have been the last item on my list. Actually, I didn’t even know I needed it on the list. What’s more, it seemed to be at the very top of God’s list.
“For ye have need of
patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the
promise” (Heb. 10:36). Patience
is not some side issue that we really do not need to seriously deal with.
Patience is essential in the process of receiving from God.
“But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience
wait for it” (Romans 8:25).
“Be patient therefore,
brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for
the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he
receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your
hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh” (James 5:7-8).
Patience involves time.
It speaks of time passing without an answer.
Patience insists on the donation of our time.
It says, “Will you give me a little time?”
Patience is always asking that question, demanding a little time,
and requiring trust in God.
I must donate my time.
The Lord will not take it from me.
I must give it willfully. I
would donate my money if I had money.
I would donate my talents if I had talents.
But donating my time demands that I slow down a little, commit
things to God, and put them in His hands.
It means I have to learn how to rest in God. That’s
what God demands.
How do you spend this
donated time? How we spend our
waiting period can be crucial to the outcome of our trial.
I have found that I must learn to worship while I wait.
We must learn to sing and make melody in our hearts.
Learn to pray in the Spirit. All
are important.
One of the best ways to walk
in patience is to enter into worship.
Spend the waiting time in worship.
Worship while we wait. Sing
unto the Lord. Pray in the
Spirit. Get lost in God, and
time will pass by much more quickly.
How we spend our time
affects how we come through our tests. I
have found it very important to spend none of my waiting time worrying.
When we catch ourselves starting to worry, we can sing a joyful
song or a worship song and commit our problem back to God.
When faith and patience work
together, the answer will come. The
night will pass. The clouds
will roll away. The sun will
shine again. Just give it
time. Daniel waited twenty-one
days, but the answer came. God
heard him on the first day he prayed, but there were reasons for the
delay. When Daniel refused to
give up, he received revelations and great understanding from God.
Abraham waited for
twenty-five years. Time seemed
to be his greatest enemy, because each passing day made the answer that
much more impossible. But
impossible situations never trouble God.
Time doesn’t trouble Him. A
thousand years is as a day, and a day is as a thousand years.
Abraham became the father of our faith, not because he performed
mighty acts of casting mountains into the sea, but because he learned to
keep trusting God despite the great span of time between the promise and
its fulfillment. When he held
baby Isaac in his hands, he knew the great value of patience mixed with
faith.
If we hope to inherit the promises, then let us “be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” Follow the example of patient followers of Christ who’ve gone before us. God will come through!
