All our lives we are being tested on our ability to wait. Those
who fail to learn early become candidates for insanity. Nothing is
more frustrating than to have an impatient mind in a world where
you cannot control all that is necessary to fulfill all your desires and
dreams. Gutzon Borglum, who craved the Mount Rushmore
Memorial, was asked if the faces he had craved were perfect in
detail? He replied that the nose of George Washington was an inch
too long, but that it would erode to exactly the right length in about
10 thousand years. If he had been a perfectionist without patience,
he would have worried himself to death over this detail, but he had
the wisdom to accept his limitations, and leave perfection to the
patient working of nature.
Those who do not learn this lesson, and who just cannot accept
their limitations, can never become mature adults, let alone mature
Christians. Maturity is directly dependent upon one's patience.
When a baby cries the mother usually goes immediately to satisfy
it's need. As the child gets older there are longer intervals between
its wishes and the fulfillment. Parents ought to make sure of this by
design. When we say a child is spoiled it really boils down to the fact
that they have not been taught patience. Their wishes have always
been fulfilled with only short intervals between. They have not been
discipline to wait. They expect the world to jump when they say
frog. They are demanding, and they expect to get what they want
right now. They are intolerant of anyone or anything that stands
between them and fulfillment of their wishes. Immaturity is largely
a matter of impatience, just as maturity is largely a matter of
patience. Mature people have the ability to endure the
postponement of wish fulfillment.
A child is usually by nature impatient, and so also immature. If it
wants a piece of candy before supper and you say they have to wait
until after supper, there can be quite a storm stirred up in them.
The child can act as if the world has lost all meaning, and there is
nothing more to live for. They can fall on the floor, kick and cry,
and be uttering crushed by this denial. This is all a part of the
process of becoming mature. The child must deliberately be made to
endure the trials of being denied. This is the only way they can
learn that wishes are not automatically and immediately fulfilled in
life. Parents do their children a great injustice when they send them
into the world unprepared for trial and denial. They must be
taught how to suffer and endure postponement.
God is not so unwise in raising His children. James is saying to
Christians that they are to rejoice in the trials that come into their
lives, for only by these can they learn patience, and only through
patience can they ever be perfect or mature. The Christian who is
raised in a sheltered situation, and who is never allowed to wrestle
with the problems of life, and the problems of faith, and who is
never made to confront the challenge of unbelief, is not prepared to
live in the world as it is. Such Christians are forced to withdraw
from the battle into their own shell, and live in fear lest something
makes them lose their faith. This is not what a Christian is to be.
He is to be a soldier of the cross. He is to be out on the front lines
confronting problems greater than his ability to solve, for only there
will he learn to be patient, and to trust that God can work even
where the Christian's limitations make him unable to work.
To learn patience is identical with becoming Christlike. Jesus
submitted to the limitations of the flesh, and to the slow but sure
way of success through patience. Paul in Rom. 15:5 calls God the
God of patience. If God was not patient history would have ended
long ago. All through the Old Testament we see His patience and
long suffering with Israel. Even before that we see His patience with
Adam and Eve. Instead of striking them dead for their sin, He let
them continue to live, and He promised them redemption. After a
multitude of failures on the part of Israel, God persisted in being
their God, and He patiently worked and waited for the fullness of
time to send forth His Son.
Jesus was not created like Adam. He was not ready to go to work
as soon as the breathe of life was breathed into Him. He had to go
through the process of growth. He patiently worked as a carpenter
until he was 30 years old, even though at age 12 He sensed the call to
be about His Father's business. What a demonstration of patient
waiting. I have seen men so impatient in their desire to preach the
Gospel that they dropped out of college or seminary, and they took a
short cut through a board that did not demand high standards of
education. Jesus could wait, but they could not. Jesus could
patiently prepare, and fully fulfill all that was required, but we often
think God's plan needs us now whether we are prepared or not.
I felt this way often, and I wanted to quit my education, but as I
look back I can see the impatience was not motivated by God's will,
but by the desire to escape the discipline it took to persist in what is
hard. It is a real trail to go to school for so many years, and have to
meet constant deadlines, and be under constant pressure, but I count
it all joy now that I suffered those trials, for through them I learned
patience, which is absolutely necessary to do the will of God.
Jesus had to have patience to see men perishing without the
Gospel, and yet wait until He was 30 to reveal Himself. Then when
He began His public ministry He spent another 40 days being tried
in the desert. You would think just waiting that long would be trial
enough, but not so. Jesus had to go on demonstrating patience over
and over again. Even in the temptation Satan offered Jesus a short
cut by which He could rule the world, but Jesus chose the long hard
way of the cross. He began His ministry with men whom He came to
save opposing Him. He was hated and mocked, and leaders sought
to trip Him up by watching every move, and listening to every word,
hoping to catch Him in a heresy. He was criticized for every action,
and finally His enemies nailed Him to the cross. Yet through it all
we do not see Jesus becoming bitter because He was misunderstood.
He did not grow sour on mankind because of their ingratitude. He
patiently endured, and even on the cross He prayed for God to
forgive them. No one has ever demonstrated the virtue of patience
like Jesus.
O who like Thee, so calm, so bright,
Thou Son of man, Thou Light of light;
O who like Thee did ever go
So patient through a world of woe!
We can never fully imitate the patience of Christ, but it is our
duty as Christians to try by His grace. We must learn the patience
of Christ to a large degree in order to be of worthwhile service to
Him. That is why James says that we are to count it all joy when we
are tried, for trials present you with an opportunity to learn
patience. A concordance will reveal that the New Testament exalts
the virtue of patience to a very high level, and makes it clear that
one cannot be a mature Christian without it. It is one of the fruits of
the Spirit.
It is a virtue of such obvious and essential value that it is
universally exalted and praised. This means it is not limited to
Christians, but is a value among all people, no person can be mature
without it. This means that the Christian ought to give all the more
heed to its importance. If a value is held in common with pagans,
and even atheists, the Christian ought to be a greater possessor of
that virtue than they are.
Tertullian, in a famous sermon preached in the 2nd century, said
of patience, "Its good quality, even they who live blindly, honor with
the title of the highest virtue. Philosophers, indeed who are counted
creatures of some wisdom, ascribe so much to it that while they
disagree among themselves in the various humors of their jests, and
the strive of rival opinions, yet having a common regard for patience
alone, in respect of this one alone of their pursuits they are joined in
peace; in this they conspire together; in this they are confederate;
this they pursue with one mind in aspiring after virtue."
No pagan religion, or moralistic philosophy, or humanism can get
far in producing any virtues in people without patience. For you
cannot even be an adjusted and mature person without it. This only
shows how much more the Christian needs patience to fulfill the
higher ideals and standards of Christ. If one cannot even be a good
pagan without it, it is impossible to be a good Christian without it.
Therefore, do not look at trials as evil, but as opportunities to
develop patience. It takes patience even to learn patience in trials.
So often we are like a child who is so concerned about his present
wishes that he does not even consider developing virtues for the
future. We often use prayer as a means to cut down the time
between our desires and their fulfillment. We do not want to go the
long hard way, and so we ask God to give us wisdom without
searching for it. We ask God to change us without going through
the painful process of change. We ask God to work immediately
rather than through the laws He has written into reality. We want a
religion like that of the magician. He pulls trees out of the hat right
before our eyes, and without all the nuisance of planting, watering,
and waiting. In body building people count it all joy to endure trial,
for they know that is the only way to build muscle. We forget that
the same thing is true for building up the soul.
Who has not had a child or loved one who was sick, and prayed
that they would be spared the suffering and be healed, and yet had
to go on watching the pain continue until it has run its course? Does
God not care? It is because God does care that He does not spoil us
like being like those foolish parents who jump at every whim and
wish of their children, and never discipline them by keeping them
waiting. God wants children who learn to wait, and who can
endure. These are the two aspects of the meaning of patience. It is
the ability to wait and hope, and to endure without giving up. It is
being persistent in your goal of being Christlike when everything
seems to hinder it and oppose it.
Being patient is essential for just normal life adjustment. It is of
double necessity to live the Christian life. Thomas A. Kempis said,
"All men commend the patience, although few be willing to practice it."
We must be among those few if we expect our lives to be the
best instruments for God's glory. Susanna Wesley had as great a
task as any woman has ever had with her large family, but her
patience enabled her to do such a marvelous job of it. She raised
children that changed the course of history. John Wesley became a
famous Christian leader, but it took a lot of patience to raise him.
His father once said to his mother, "How could you have the
patience to tell that blockhead the same thing 20 times over?" She
replied, "If I had told him but 19 times, I should have lost all my
labor." She was persistently patient, and that is why her life is used
in millions of sermons as an illustration of the Christian life.
Fruit growing takes patience. Most of us want to get the fruits of
the Spirit just like we get our groceries. We want to walk along and
pick up what we desire and be done with it. This would be possible
if we could acquire fruits grown by someone else, but in the moral
and spiritual realm every person has to grow their own. The
process calls for discipline and patience. Those who cannot persist
and wait until they develop and grow will never progress to the
point of perfection. If you cannot wait, you cannot win. Hovey said,
"Impatience strikes a death blow to all the graces of the Holy Spirit.
Not one of them can remain intact in an impatient soul." On the
other hand he said, "Every act of real patience, under severe trial,
tends to strengthen itself and all other graces." The bottom line is
that we can only be all that God wants us to be by learning to be
persistently patient.
