Sabbath Reflections - Patience

Although pedestrian to many, patience stands as one of life's greatest virtues and a defining characteristic of Christ and our Heavenly Father who sent Him. And yet, patience is only developed through our experiential course in life. "The Lord simultaneously tries the patience of His people even as He tries their faith" (Mosiah
23:21). On our pathway of discipleship, it is through the refiner's fire that we are tried, tested and become more patient.

"Patience is not indifference. Actually, it is caring very much, but being willing, nevertheless, to submit both to the Lord and to what the scriptures call the “process of time.”

Patience is tied very closely to faith in our Heavenly Father. Actually, when we are unduly impatient, we are suggesting that we know what is best—better than does God. Or, at least, we are asserting that our timetable is better than his. Either way we are questioning the reality of God’s omniscience, as if, as some seem to believe, God were on some sort of postdoctoral fellowship.

Saint Teresa of Avila said that unless we come to know the reality of God, our mortal existence “will be no more than a night in a second-class hotel” (Malcolm Muggeridge, “The Great Liberal Death Wish,” Imprimis, Hillsdale College, Michigan, May 1979). Our second estate can be a first-class experience only if we have patient faith in God and his unfolding purposes."1

Paul wrote to the Hebrews, "For ye have need of ^apatience, that, after ye have done the ^bwill of God, ye might receive the ^cpromise" (Heb. 10:36). The enduring and patient do not become weary amid the struggle, and yet how often in our striving to endure do we falter and become wearied under the stress and burden of it all? Even so, at the inflection point of default, if we are "yoked" with Him who is perfectly patient, we will be lifted up and enabled even unto our "enduring well," for it is by and through the refiner's love and perfect empathy that we are perfected in our patience, for the moment. And it is in our continued striving and enduring well amid recurring experiential moments that patience becomes perfected in us. Paul further counseled, "...run with patience the race that is set before us" (Heb 12:1) - it is not a sprint.

"Patience is not only a companion of faith but is also a friend to free agency. Inside our impatience there is sometimes an ugly reality: We are plainly irritated and inconvenienced by the need to make allowances for the free agency of others. In our impatience, which is not the same thing as divine discontent, we would override others, even though it is obvious that our individual differences and preferences are so irretrievably enmeshed with each other that the only resolution which preserves free agency is for us to be patient and long-suffering with each other.

The passage of time is not, by itself, an automatic cure for bad choices. But often individuals, like the prodigal son, can “in process of time” come to their senses. The touching reunion of Jacob and Esau in the desert—so many years after their youthful rivalry, is a classic example of how generosity can replace animosity when truth is mixed with time (see Gen. 33).

When we are unduly impatient, however, we are, in effect, trying to hasten an outcome when acceleration would abuse agency. Enoch, brilliant, submissive, and spiritual, knew what it meant to see a whole city-culture advance in “process of time.” He could tell us so much about so many things, including patience.

Patience makes possible a personal spiritual symmetry which arises only from prolonged obedience within free agency!

There is also a dimension of patience which links it to a special reverence for life. Patience is a willingness, in a sense, to watch the unfolding purposes of God with a sense of wonder and awe—rather than pacing up and down within the cell of our circumstance.

Too much anxious opening of the oven door and the cake falls instead of rising! So it is with us. If we are always selfishly taking our temperature to see if we are happy, we won’t be.

When we are impatient, we are neither reverential nor reflective because we are too self-centered. Whereas faith and patience are companions, so are selfishness and impatience."1

Contrarily, there is a calming influence in our lives when patient and within such we are tutored and enhanced in our capacities to do that which is asked of us. Many in our society today are absorbed with self interest, seeking for immediacy and instant gratification and/or response, whereas the willingly patient who defers to the process of the Lord's time receives the ultimate reward. The hallmark of individual maturity and self mastery is the one who willingly accepts and acknowledges, with patience, the deferred dividends thereof. It is also in these calming patient moments that we discover greater opportunity for discernment as to what truly matters and "what mattereth not," that we like Mary may choose the "good part" (Luke 10:42)

"Patience helps us to use, rather than protest, [the] seeming flat periods of life, becoming filled with quiet wonder over the past and with anticipation for that which may lie ahead, instead of demeaning the particular flatness through which we may be passing at the time.

We should savor even the seemingly ordinary times, for life cannot be made up of all kettledrums and crashing cymbals. There must be some flutes and violins. Living cannot be all crescendo; there must be some counterpoint.

Clearly, without patience, we will learn less in life. We will see less. We will feel less. We will hear less. Ironically, rush and more usually mean less. The pressures of now, time and time again, go against the grain of the gospel with its eternalism.

The patient person assumes that what others have to say is worth listening to. A patient person is not so chronically eager to put forth his own ideas. In true humility, we do some waiting upon others. We value them for what they say and what they have to contribute. Patience and humility are special friends."1

Amid our struggles and personal experiences our patience is tried, tested and refined, whether such struggles are significant or routine, such is the pathway of the disciple. Patience enables and strengthens our faith when we are caught in boisterous winds or stormy seas, and though we may feel that we are being tossed to and fro, we are progressing along the pathway. As written in Romans, "tribulation worketh patience," and it shall "be for our good."

“For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God” (1 Pet. 2:20).

May we be constant in our striving, recognizing the interdependence of all Christlike attributes, with further acknowledgement of the foundational nature of meekness, patience, faith and obedience.

1 NA Maxwell