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Stephen Ministry

Patience is what most of us wish we had. It is that enduring quality that allows for a less stressful life. It is the calmness we see on another’s face. It is something we admire in others, but when virtues were passed out it feels like we were passed by. In fact many of us, from time to time, feel pretty shortchanged in the patience department.

Margaret Thatcher, a former Prime Minister of England, referred to as the "Iron Lady" when questioned about her lack of patience, she responded in this way, "I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end."!

It is much easier for us to succumb to impatience than entertain the idea of developing patience. If we were to stop and make a list of things that try our patience, I suspect we could make quite a list! In fact even categories of impatience come to mind like: we can be impatient with ourselves, over not reaching goals we have set; or running out of time to complete our work, or not doing things as well as others. Then there are those things that test our patience with others: like people who say they are going to do something and don’t; or those who cut us off in conversation, or on the freeway. Or how about those people who don’t listen to us, whine too much, or demand their own way. Finally, a third category are those times we get impatient with God. We pray and there is no answer. Or we pray, and the answer is not the one we submitted. The world needs to be fixed and nothing is being done. We want answers and they are not forthcoming. We don’t like to admit this, but if we are honest, there are a myriad of things that can down right annoy us.

In our frantic world being with a patient person can even frustrate us. When my mother first moved to Colorado she resided in an assisted living facility. One day I decided to take her on a picnic up in the mountains. On one of those beautiful Colorado days, I packed our lunch, picked her up and headed up the mountains to a state park I thought she would enjoy. At that stage of her life she did everything slowly, but that was always true. Always the lady, she walked carefully, selected her words thoughtfully, and was the slowest eater I have ever seen. She was always present in the moment. My mother was full of patience and often this tested mine.

When we arrived we walked to the iron picnic table, arranged the table cloth and food on top, which seemed to take considerable time. But I remember thinking, this day is not in my time frame; it is for her, and she was enjoying it immensely. That is, until we sat down. Then, literally from nowhere clouds began to gather quickly, thunder cracked across the canyon, and the first lightening in the distance appeared. I jumped up, swooped the picnic up into the tablecloth, frantic to get her to safety in the car. After two steps I realized it was not going to happen, and I had this terrible image of lightening striking the iron table with the headlines reading, "Woman kills her mother by planning picnic in a storm."

I was frantic, pulling, dragging, and urging her to hurry. But it was not to be. In her slow steady pace, she made her way to the car with me praying all the way. She did not grasp the urgency of it all. She did not understand my impatience and fear, nor why I had dragged her up here, simply to have a picnic in the car. It was a moment that has made me laugh many times since, but not then. "What ever will be, will be" was always her motto, as she lived the gift of patience, whatever the situation.

"Patience" says Bill Maglashen, "is something you admire in the driver behind you, but not in the one ahead." Patience is a virtue and impatience usually doesn’t make anything better. Waiting in traffic, waiting at the doctor’s office, waiting in line at the grocery store, or being put on hold on the phone, can create considerable annoyance if we let it.

Besides there are negative consequences that can result from our impatience, such as:

So what’s the answer? We know what it is: we are to follow the way of Christ. Paul is talking here about freedom and the law. When we think freedom means simply doing our own thing, we get in a mess. Listen to how Eugene Peterson’s graphic description in Galatians, describes misplaced freedom gone amuck:

Then Paul reminds us there is a better way:

This is living in the Spirit. It produces fruits within us that enrich our lives. They free us up in our relationships with each other. They are not meant as a burden, something to conquer, but rather to give us a feeling of rightness, satisfaction, joy. The nine fruits of the spirit that we are thinking about each week, are the rewards of a relationship with Christ. All are under the rubric of love and the Spirit resides in those who believe.

Each of these fruits, like a farmer’s harvest, takes time to plant, to water, to feed, and to grow. So it is with us. We cannot simply will ourselves to be patient, and presto, we are. But we can provide an open heart and engage in patient waiting that provides a fertile place for God to work. We can accept the truth that God is always about the business of transforming us for the better, if we don’t slam the door shut with our demands and impatience. If we remember that it is in both the rain and the sunshine of our lives, in which God is able to create something beautiful.

There are times in our lives when we are forced to wait. No amount of hurrying or tapping our impatient foot will change the waiting required. The nine month incubation of a baby is one of those times. The baby is busy growing and it usually takes nine months. Different stages of development are occurring during each month of incubation. Wishing it to go faster hampers the joy of the miracle being formed.

The Intensive Care waiting room is another one of those places. Wes Seeliger writes of family members who wait anxiously to hear how their loved one is doing. It is a life threatening time and their questions are in anguish. Will my husband make it? Will my child walk again? They are not rude or impatient with each other. Distinctions of race and class melt away. A person is a father first, a black man second. The garbage man loves his wife as much as the college professor loves his. Each person is pulling for everyone else. Everyone there knows that loving someone else is what life is all about.

If we choose to use our times of waiting productively, something wonderful could happen. Those times of suffering or impatience can be times God uses to shape us. We may even be aware at that moment, of God offering us one of the fruits of the Spirit.

I am grateful for this series, of what God might be doing within me. Focusing on one word each week, like patience, helps lock it in my heart. This week seemed to be full of experiences that kept me focused on both my patience and my impatience. Each was an opportunity to talk with God in thanksgiving or petition.

There is the temptation, however, to master the list. If I just practiced some new behavior, got a list of skills in order, then perhaps I could check this off my spiritual "To Do" list. But in the desire to master, we forget who the real master is. Being aware helps me remember, that God is the tiller and I am the soil. I ask myself, is it Colorado clay or is it that rich Iowa corn kind of soil in me?

I am touched by those around me who already have the fruit of patience. It can be as contagious as impatience, can’t it? With God’s help, we too, are capable of a better way.

Ron and I just finished a class where some 54 members gathered for 5 weeks to take a look at two issues that not only confront our culture but are before our church. It was our goal to provide a safe place where all could discuss without judgment. It was not our goal to persuade or convince, nor was it our decision to frame the issues of abortion and homosexuality within right or wrong categories.. We invited all to listen to the opposite opinion rather than getting stuck just defending their own. It seemed like a place of patience for the most part; where relationships were honored more than their opinion.

Dr. Calvin Miller, professor of preaching, sums it up this way:

Anything is possible with God, even patience. Amen

In closing I would like to share 2 well-known prayers with you. The first is one circulating the internet that goes like this:

Probably more helpful is the well known Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity

Let’s take a few moments now, in our own way, to offer this prayer to God from open hearts.