The Practicality of Patience

“May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father…encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.”    (II Thess. 2:16-17)

This speaks of strength to face life in the good times and bad. There are hidden heroes and heroines who, by His strength, are facing suffering victoriously. Every day holds new agony and every night new torturous trials. At the end of life awaits dying grace. Others enjoy the bounty of life with a strong workable faith.

Encouragement follows strength as heat does fire.

There are people who would have been overwhelmed were it not for the strength supplied by the Lord. Some have had enough grief to overwhelm ten persons, but have been sustained by His strength.

Strength is found in being patient. Isaiah 40:31 verifies this.

“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)

Are you ever confronted by a situation that demands patience? The next time it occurs, think of it as an occasion in which our Lord is offering to strengthen you.  The capacity to relax and wait on the Lord should be thought of as a state of being you can access at any moment, and not just something reserved for later on. You can relax now.

According to 1 Samuel “lack of patience can cause you to miss blessings.” 

Being more relaxed involves training yourself to respond differently to the dramas of life. In doing so you turn your melodramas into mellow-dramas. You have trained yourself to respond like you do presently. Now you can engage in re-orientation and retrain yourself.

Consider life a classroom and patience the course of study.  Consider this process of developing patience.  Set aside a thirty minute period of time and say to yourself in advance, “During this time I won’t let anything bother me, I will be patient and wait on the Lord for solutions for everything that comes up in this thirty minutes.”  This will strengthen your ability to be patient.  This process is one where success feeds on success.  The more successful you are in stringing thirty minute periods of time together, the more successful you will be in exercising patience. You will develop strength through the Lord.

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9)