God's timing is perfect - learning to wait on the Lord (Patience)

 God’s timing is perfect: Learning to wait on the Lord (Patience)

 

How many times have you heard someone say, ‘I want it done yesterday’?  It is a staple of many a parent and many a boss.  I know, I have been both and have used it often, without quite ever thinking about it.  We live in a world that craves instant gratification and outcomes and as a result we often struggle with the concept and indeed the practice of patience.

In Ecclesiastes 3:11 it says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

For Christian’s, and I count myself as a perpetrator of this, we often find that waiting on God’s timing to be one of the biggest aspects of our faith that we struggle with.  Patience is a trait that we can sometimes pick up last because we must retrain ourselves to be patient.  We are to be born again into this trait through our faith, learning its meaning in the biblical sense and how we must apply it to our daily, busy, stressful lives.

You will have also heard the saying “Must have the patience of a Saint, that one” which usually applies to a situation you find yourself in, that others are impatient about.  Dealing with a toddler on a tantrum; a customer who will not shut up complaining; a family member that may be loved by you, but not by them and the myriads of issues that come from relationships, just to name a few.

Why do we struggle with the concept and practice of patience?

Firstly, as mentioned above, our western society barrels its way through time and space at breakneck speed and it is hard to break away from this, when we become Christians, as we have been conditioned to it our whole lives.

Even little kids in schools are now facing ‘exams’ in their young years (something I do not agree with, but then again me and school never agreed with each other anyway) instead of being allowed to ‘grow’ into education and find their own niche.  Our society is still based on class-based systems where the less academic are often forgot about so that schools can concentrate on putting the ‘brighter kids through and get the exams results they need for their league table status.  This then has a knock-on effect for when they leave school and want to enter the world of work.  Employer’s put so much status into how many exams a kid has got and will take that person over a kid who has not got any, when it is the kid who has not got any that will work the hardest to continually prove that they deserved the chance.  Employers do not know what kids go through at school that may have affected their ‘results. One of my son’s left school with no exam results.  He was diagnosed with autism at the age of 14 and this was ‘too late’ for him to receive any support that would make a difference to his exam results.  He had been on Special Education measures, but these were about as useless as the paper they were written on.  Did this stop him from working towards achieving his goal? No.  He always wanted to become an actor, and I have to give a big shout out to Rotherham College of Arts and Technology for the support that they gave him through four years of performance art training for which he gained a level three qualification.  This was enough then for him to apply to university for him to work towards a degree.  He achieved a 2:1 honour degree in Acting through Hull University, but delivered at the Rotherham University Hub, which gave him the confidence he needed knowing that there were people who knew of his situation and were there to continue to help him.  Not bad for someone who still can hardly read or write.

Why do I mention this?  It is twofold – firstly to demonstrate that no matter who you are or whatever your ‘station’ is in life, you can achieve what you want to achieve by working hard, and secondly, the amount of patience I had to show as I sat with him night after night, typing away, recording his answers to the academic questions he was being asked for his course work (this changed when he completed his degree as they helped him with a disability grant for a laptop with relevant speech to text software).  I have often said that I should get an honorary degree for the amount of work I put in! (of course, he is my son, and I would have done it anyway).

I did this all, after finishing a days work and at weekends and there were times when my patience was wearing a little thin, but the end result, seeing him being the first student union president of the new university hub and the person to give the student speech at graduation and to see him on the stage performing in some amazing pieces of work is just so totally worth it.  He also works normal jobs too!

This is the place we need to get to as Christians – seeing patience as being totally worth it.

We are in great company though if we feel that our patience is wearing thin.  In Nehemiah 9:30 it says that God was patient with his people and that his spirit, through the prophets warned them, and they paid no attention, so he handed them over to the neighbouring peoples’.  What this says is that although our God is a patient god, he also has his limits.  He loves us unconditionally but if we continue to break away from him then his patience is going to run thin.

But that’s the Old Testament, which is full of dire and stark warnings, which we are to take notice of, but what we are to take more notice of his Jesus.

If the Old Testament is the history and the law and all of the stuff with the major and minor prophets, then the New Testament is our instruction book.

I’m going to give you a list of bible passages for you to look at in your own time, but I want to bring to your attention now.  The first is from my favourite piece in the bible.  1 Corinthians 13 where it says that Love is patient, and it is kind.

This for me is the key.  Love.  I’m not talking here about any sort of sexual love, although important in monogamy relationships.  The kind of love I am talking about is our love for fellow human beings, no matter who they are and where they come from.

What we are seeing in our world today, especially in the USA, but also here in the UK, is that we have forgotten how to love one another.  Communities are not communities anymore; they are just a collection of people who live on the same street or in the same area.

The bible teaches us to love one another as we love ourselves.  With this love comes patience, after all it is the third of the fruits of the spirit coming after Love and joy.

Many times, where lives implode it is due to a lack of patience and love for one another.  Even within church congregations’ patience can wear thin and love evaporates.  New ministers come into a church, and everyone is excited to see them and to look at what they are going to do only to find that their new ideas are shot down by the ‘old’ guard of the church because ‘we don’t do that here’.  Then we have the ‘Christians’ who are only Christians on a Sunday as they have a ‘job’ to do at church and no one else can do it!

We need to love our fellow human again; this will not only enrich us and them but will allow the spiritual growth we need for patience to take root.

We need to look at 2 Timothy 2:24-26 which says, “and the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful.  Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape the trap of the devil who has taken them captive to do his will.”

 We shouldn’t have spiritual memory loss.  We often forget that God has proven to us time and time again how trustworthy he is.  We forget that we can find rest in his goodness and develop our sense of patience through him and for his glory here on Earth.

But don’t take my word for it, have a look yourself.  Here are the Bible verses I said I would give you.  Have a look and may God bless you always.  Amen

 

2 Peter 3:9

2 Peter 3:15

1 Tim 1:16

Col 1:11

2 Cor 6:6

Eph 4:2

2 Tim 4:2

1 Corinthians 13:4

James 1:2-4

James 5:7-8

Heb 6:12

Gal 5:22