Patience. Something I have very little of. How about you? Well patience is up next on our fruits of the Spirit journey. I thought about combining some of the fruits to move this study along but decided to do so would be reacting to my impatience. You know, my eagerness to move to the next lesson without living in and learning in the current lesson. So, Patience it is.
What is Patience? I’ve been wrestling with this word for a few days trying to figure out what it really means and what it looks like applied. I went backwards, you know, figure out what something isn’t in order to figure out what something is? I know that what it is not is some of the things I am. I’m anything but patient. I’m impatient. I’m eager. I’m anxious.
We think patience is inaction,
but can it not be the highest form of action?
Waiting seems to cause much impatience. Why so? For me it’s because I’m a zoomer. I zoom from this to that. You know, room to room, task to task, thought to thought, fix to fix, control to control (ugh!!!). The problem with being a zoomer is that it is reactionary. Reacting can cause anger, frustration, anxiety, obstinance, insistence, impatience! You can probably name a few of your own reactions. Unfortunately for us, all of those reactions are wrong, and if acted on, sinful – ouch — I’m sinful on a daily basis. Let’s see what our Creator has to say about patience:
Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
Colossians 3:12
Clears it right up, doesn’t it? Anybody else feel like they need some new clothes? Sometimes His commands are just so simple that they are hard. We know what patience is not, but what is it? The word patience in this text comes from two words – long (makros) and suffering (thumos) – makrothumia. It is what it says – long-suffering – waiting – forebearance – putting up with without reaction. How many times does the Apostle Paul tell us to endure? We are to endure in patience.
Have you noticed a pattern in our study of Galatians? We cannot produce any of the fruits of the Spirit on our own. Only God can produce in us those fruits of the Spirit, including true patience, long-suffering.
Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free.
Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.
Colossians 3:10-11
Put on your new nature – put on – that’s an action, not a reaction. Act before you have to react. How so? Get to know Jesus (action), He’s really all that matters (action), and become like Him (action). Only in becoming like Him can we then put on patience, or any other fruit for that matter, and ensure that that is what we’re leaving on our path. We don’t want our paths to be marked by reactions, the opposite of patience – angry, short-tempered, anxious, frustrated, reactors. New life in Christ – that’s the only way!
Wednesday
Read Colossians 3:1-17. Patience is action and impatience is reaction. Are you an actor or a reactor? Write a strategic plan for yourself that will enable you to be an actor instead of a reactor. Are we continually being renewed as we learn more and more about Christ? Have we even changed our clothes? How do we change our clothes? Chew on verse 11 – is that true for you?
Thursday
Read Psalm 40. Write down the benefits of waiting for the Lord. Would we have those benefits if we didn’t have those trials? Memorize verse 17 to act upon patience in our waiting.
Friday
Read James 5:7-12. What are we to do while we patiently wait? In addition to Job, what other prophets endured suffering and hardship and waited patiently on the Lord to deliver them? Write down a couple.
Saturday
Read 2 Peter 3. Does life sometimes cause us to say – Even so come, Lord Jesus, come? What is the reason Peter gives that the Lord is waiting to return? How should we be living while we wait?
Sunday
Read Romans 2:1-16. What reasons do the scriptures give us for the Lord’s patience? How are we using the time God has given us? Is there sin in our lives we need to turn from?
Monday
Read Psalm 27. The Psalms are beautiful songs of encouragement and instruction. David was a master songwriter. Search your Bible for more Psalms that affirm God’s patience with us, for us, and through us.
Tuesday
Spend time today in prayer asking the Holy Spirit to fan the flames of the spirit of Patience. Ask the Lord to teach you the patience He has mirrored for us. Is there unconfessed sin in our lives? Take an opportunity to confess those things that may get in the way of our mark of Patience on our path. Do we need to confess impatience, anger, self-controllessness? Pray God’s great strength in our lives to be able to forebear, to endure, to wait patiently, to long-suffer, just as He has done for us to come to Him. Praise Him!