The Practice of Patience

“Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord!” Psalms 27:14 (NKJV)

Overcoming stuff in life produces patience as we practice letting God work things out in His own time. “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” James 1:2-4 (NKJV) 

Patience is the practice of waiting for God to make the stuff in our lives work out. 

God knows what we are going through, and He will see to it that we are able to make it through because He sees what our lives will look like after we have overcome the stuff we are going through. When we try to take control of our situations to force them to work out by our own strength, we fall short of doing it God’s way. Isaiah explained, “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.’” Isaiah 55:8-9 (NKJV)

When we try to make things work out according to how we see them, and when we act within our perception of time, we confuse God’s path for our lives. This is true even if it seems like it is within the will of God. 

We can’t see all that God sees, so sometimes we cannot understand all the whys, whats and hows.

In Genesis 37, God gave Joseph a vision that he would become a ruler. As he went forward with his life, things continued to happen that did not seem like they pointed toward leadership in any capacity. Joseph was betrayed by his brothers and sold into slavery, but he did not complain that the work he had to do was beneath his promised destiny. He continued to work diligently and found favor in God’s eyes and in Potiphar’s eyes, as he focused on what he could do instead of what he should have. He was eventually betrayed by Potiphar’s wife and thrown into prison, but even in his undesirable position as a prisoner, he did not complain and he worked diligently with his hands, and God blessed him. Eventually, Joseph was exalted to a place of power and authority in Egypt, but it took a long time. Joseph was given the vision as a child of being a ruler, but it took years of patience for him to see God fulfill that promise.

How do we have patience and wait for God to take control of the stuff in our lives? As we take the focus off of our stuff and how we think our lives should be, we begin to surrender control. We have to live according to the way God wants us to live. If it is the thing God wants to do, but not the way God would have us do it, it is not from Him.

Trying to do the things of God our way takes away God’s control in our lives. 

When we try to take control of our situations by ourselves, we become bound to those situations. “So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free. Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” Galatians 4:31-5:1 (NKJV) If we stand firm in Christ and His ways, giving Him control over our lives, we can have the patience to wait on Him. “But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.” 1 Peter 5:10 (NKJV) 

Patience settles in our lives when we focus not on where we are, but where God is. 

By pursuing patience, waiting on God and resting where He is, we will be able to overcome the stuff in our lives. “But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31 (NJKV) By being patient, we allow God to bring us through the stuff in our lives, and as we grow in patience, we allow God’s presence to grow in our lives.

It has been difficult to avoid those distractions and not to lose heart when God’s timing has not matched mine, but “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NKJV)