Character-building Patience – the sequel

Last time I mentioned that patience is a community thing. We have to be patient with circumstances. We may also have to be patient with others around us who are under the same pressures and perhaps not reacting so well as we are. Now our patience with others may have more benefits than just calming situations down. It may help remind someone of God’s wonderful patience with us. 

Has He not been patient? You and I owe our very existence to the patience of God. Without His millennia-long patience we would never even have come to birth! 

In 2 Peter 3 from verse 3 on we read that scoffers will come in the last days. “They will say, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.’” Peter reminds them how the sudden coming of the Great Flood shows us how swiftly God can act when He chooses. He goes on, “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfil his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. … Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God? … [C]ount the patience of our Lord as salvation.” (ESV)

Each of us probably has a story of someone who blessed us by their patience towards us. In my case a memory strikes me from way back in 1967, and my unlikely benefactor was a gruff, ageing sergeant-major. I was a raw teenage cadet in the Combined Cadet Force, faced with passing my proficiency. Among other hoops I was required to jump through, I had to make the grade at target shooting. After a number of attempts with the .22 Lee Enfield rifle I had not yet reached the 60 marks needed. I approached our arthritic sergeant-major, seated at his desk at one corner of the safe end of the school rifle range, surrounded by a pile of cartridge boxes. 

“Please let me have another go, sir,” I begged. “That’s all very well, Demore, but these cartridges cost money – sixpence a time. We can’t be forever wasting them on you.” 

I must have looked pathetic and desperate enough to soften his resolve, however, and he gave me another chance. It paid off. On the crucial day I scored a creditable 71. In the end, though no soldier really, I achieved my proficiency. 

Without God’s incredible patience I would be a failure in far more important areas than not scoring enough bull’s-eyes on a rifle range. I would fail, for all eternity, to make it into heaven. That I can confidently “hope, by His good pleasure/safely to arrive at home” is down to at least two breathtaking facts: though I am essentially no different from the baying crowd who jeered as Jesus was crucified, He patiently endured a painful death to fulfil His Father’s salvation plan for the likes of me He puts up patiently with me though, day after day, my behaviour makes it look as though I’ve got nothing to be grateful to Him for. 

Put no strain on God’s patience. Your salvation depends on it. Instead, mirror it by being patient with someone else – it may depict God to them!

Character-building Patience

The findings of a 2006 survey of more than 1,000 adults revealed that most people take an average of 17 minutes to lose their patience while waiting in line. Also, most people lose their patience in only 9 minutes while on hold on the phone. I can certainly sympathise. More than once recently I have wrestled with complicated call centre options and given up in disgust.

The “patience” of an Old Testament character called Job was proverbial from early times (James 5:11). However, any serious reader of the Book of Job will soon discover that the hero was anything but patient in the modern sense of the word. He bewailed his wretched state and repeatedly took God to task for allowing it to happen. In other words, he was human. We can all identify with the strength of his feelings. Yet he is rightly credited with patience, but of a different order, as we shall see later.

James in his fifth chapter was addressing Christians suffering gross persecution. Faced with persistent discrimination and injustice, they were tempted to give up following Christ. After promising so much at the start, submitting to the gospel seemed to be leading them nowhere. How could James possibly comfort them and stiffen their resolve? He writes that those who persecute and exploit them will eventually come to rue the day. But how will they go on in the meantime?

“Be patient, therefore, brothers,” urges James, “until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand” (James 5:7-8 ESV).

“Be patient”? “Give up” would seem to be a more appropriate reaction. But what James advises is not passive fatalism, but an active, productive and wholesome endurance.

First, we are to be patient because there is a reward in view and personal development to be gained on the journey. We wait patiently, and that suggests waiting for something. That something is clearly the second coming in glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. But in waiting we also grow. The farmer works patiently for a harvest; with a harvest, he and his dependents can emerge from the winter fit and well. In the same way, the Christian uses his or her best endeavours in the midst of trials, aiming for a spiritual harvest of maturity and completeness.

Second, patience is rooted in dependable promise. The “early and late rains” are promised in the Bible and are a standard Old Testament image of God's promised faithfulness (Deuteronomy 11:13-14). In exactly the same way, God has given Christians a promise: Christ’s return. It isn’t just a pipe dream or a happy ending to a fairy tale; it’s a promise backed up by Christ’s resurrection, which has already happened. Isn’t that a spur to endurance?

Third, patience influences our behaviour patterns. We live and react differently when exercising patience. We’ll look at one practical outworking of this shortly. “Establish your hearts” is the watchword in verse 8. The heart is the seat of courage and resolve. Exercising Christian patience, we do the courageous and resolute thing rather than always cynically taking the line of least resistance.

Finally, the Lord’s coming is at hand. The way it is put in the original language, it’s as good as here already. The moral is: don't give up now!

James goes on to give one practical piece of advice and an example to encourage us. The practical advice is, “Do not grumble against one another”. This is profoundly wise. One danger with communities under stress is that individuals start turning on each other. This simply adds to the pressures. Patience is a community thing!

The examples to inspire us are the Old Testament prophets and ... Job. Job may have bemoaned his fate in plaintive terms, but he never short-circuited his misery by following his wife’s misguided advice to “Curse God and die”! As a result he became an inspiration, a byword for successful endurance.

A writer comments, “Suffering enters the believer’s life; perseverance is the believer’s response; blessing comes from the Lord, who is full of compassion and mercy. ... All of this demonstrates the character of the Lord, which is finally what James wants his readers to know with confidence.”

May God grant us this year a patience from God that just keeps us going confidently on our way, whatever happens!