patiencefruit

Fruit of Patience

                                         A Series On Galatians 5:22-23

          “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,
     faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.”

In previous issues of TNBW we have looked at the fruit of love, joy, and peace. We have now arrived at “patience”. And what will we discover as we begin sampling a taste of this section of the fruit of the Holy Spirit?

To begin with, it’s important to say again that, in talking about the fruit of the Holy Spirit, we are talking about a singular fruit. We are not talking about a basket of differing kinds of fruit. We are talking about the one multi-faceted Holy Spirit of God who manifests himself in multi-faceted fashion in our lives. Patience is one manifestation of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Because patience tends to be a scary word, we need to take the time to define it. In the original languages of the Bible, the word here translated “patience” is also translated “endurance, constancy, steadfastness, perseverance, forbearance, longsuffering, and slowness in avenging wrongs”. An English dictionary that I use defines patience as “a tolerant understanding and the capacity of calm endurance. That definition creates a tall order to be filled in our lives.

Over these past two and a half decades I can recall a number of times when preachers and teachers have spouted humorous cliches about patience but I don’t recall ever hearing a sermon preached or a lesson taught about patience. I think patience is one of those topics that we try to avoid simply because it’s something that we wrestle so arduously with. Patience demands our attention and we find that we are demeaned all too often because of our lack of it.

Yet, despite our struggles with it and our making jokes about it, patience is something commanded of us in Holy Scriptures and a little biblical mining is called for if we are to more fully understand this fruit of the Spirit.

Ecclesiastes 7:8 says, “Better is the end of a thing than its beginning; the patient in spirit are better than the proud in spirit.”

How many times do we find ourselves living through seasons of difficulty? How many times in an ordinary week of our lives do we find situations created by people that test our patience? How many people are we continuously associated with who have something in their human disposition that causes us to react impatiently toward them?

Solomon, the writer of Ecclesiastes, was an intelligent man. As the king of Israel he was called upon to make difficult decisions and his decisions worked either to remedy or to compound the problems of life in his day and the historical truth is that he did both. Solomon inherited a heavy burden from his father David who was king before him. He had seen and done much during his years as king and there is a very certain tone of resolve in this short book that is also referred to as “The Preacher”.

Our own personal experiences, if we listen to them as points of reference, instruct us in the truth projected here by Solomon. We always have something to look forward to. Even the most difficult avenues that we travel include the occasional oasis where we are able to refresh ourselves. God is with us in the difficult times as well as in the easy ones.

Someone coined the expression “Called or not called, God is still present.” I find it appropriate to enlarge upon this thought by saying, “Felt or not, God is still with us.” Jesus did tell us that he would never leave or forsake us. We can indeed live in such a way that our deeds erect walls and barriers that hinder us from experiencing his presence but even these are remedied through repentance and prayer.

We also somehow forget that we are born into a life of testing and tribulation. None of us are immune to these. Some may be born into affluent conditions that provide more bountifully the niceties and dainties of this world but even the affluent wrestle with trials and tribulations peculiar to the rich. We are all born to a life of preparation for something on a much larger and grander scale than we see here in the physical realm. How we face and undergo our preparation is our choice. We can kick and scream from the perspective of a person with a proud heart or we can submit and become pliable and moldable as one who has a patient spirit.

Romans 12:12 says, “Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.”

There is a real gem here that we need to uncover and polish. It’s a gem with three layers that holds a great deal of promise for us as we travel through life replete with its deep valleys and difficult experiences.

The Apostle tells us that we are to first of all “rejoice in hope”. What and where is our hope? If our hope is merely in this life and the material things of this world we are surely a pathetic people because there is absolutely nothing physical that doesn’t decay and eventually perish. Our hope is not in this life or world. Our hope is in God and his eternal plan. Our hope is in eternity where God has prepared an incorruptible home for us. God is the source and point of our rejoicing.

Because we rejoice in hope we discover the strength to “be patient in suffering”. Suffering is not a popular topic in the world today and there are certain teachers who insist that if we are suffering we must not be walking in faith. The truth of the matter is that all of us go through many trials and tribulations here in this life. Some of our suffering is brought about by decisions and choices we make while some is the result of the choices and decisions of other people. Regardless of the source, all of us suffer in varying degrees. Having a confident hope in God helps us walk through our seasons of suffering without being overwhelmed or overcome by the trials and tribulations that fill these seasons.

As we rejoice in hope and discover patience in the face of adversity we are then enabled to “persevere in prayer”. How often do we begin a prayer journey only to find ourselves detoured away from our prayerful destination? How often do we find ourselves facing what appears to be insurmountable mountain ranges of obstacles or crippling crises and during the initial face-off and throughout the tribulation wane in prayer for any one or combination of a multitude of reasons and excuses? Most of us, if we are truly honest, have to respond to these two questions by saying “all too often”.

Here, within the layers of this gem, resides the essential elements of much of our success, or lack thereof, as Christians. These elements are found in the life of Christ, in the lives of his disciples, and in the lives of the saints throughout the ages who have been significantly used of the Lord to further his purpose among the ranks of humankind. How dare we to think that our lives can be used to further his purpose unless we too embrace and model these essential elements.

Hebrews 10:36 says, “For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.”

Not long after becoming a Christian, my pastor and his wife took me to an old fashioned evangelical camp meeting one summer in Alabama. I had never been to a camp meeting and the trip was made even more special and interesting because I had just recently enrolled in Bible college and the president of the college was the speaker for the week at the camp meeting. My pastor and his wife knew the president casually. They introduced me to Dr. John and told him that I was coming down to the college to study for the ministry. I’ll never forget his response. He said, “Great. When you get there we’ll get you disciplined.” He could have just as easily said, “Come to the college and we’ll put you through enough difficult rigors to develop your endurance! We’ll see what you are made of.”

I wanted a degree. I committed myself to the discipline involved to complete the course. At the end of the discipline I received the degree that I was working toward. There were times when I felt like the disciplines were too great. There were times when I felt that their prescribed essentials were non-essentials. There were times when it was all I could do to just do the routine and finish the assignments.

Endurance is not a spiritual gift that divinely enables us to accomplish a task. Endurance is a personal commitment to a course of action or way of life. Endurance is our day to day commitment to living divine truth until we finally achieve immortality in the presence of the one who promises eternal blessings to those who are faithful to him.

James 1:4 says, “Let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.”

The full effect of endurance is that it has a seasoning effect on us. As we are seasoned we gradually lose our tendency to throw childish tantrums when things don’t work the way we want them to. Our tolerance level is increased and we are able to keep “pressing toward the goal” that is set before us.

One of the great tragedies of our age is the declining attention span of people. It’s been said that television has been a determining factor here with its programmed commercial breaks that have conditioned us to remain focused for short periods of time. Whatever the source, whatever the cause, we have much to overcome if we are going to reacquire the character traits that lend themselves to longevity where the pursuit of goals is concerned.

When he speaks of “lacking in nothing”, James is not talking about microwaves in our kitchens, Jacuzzis in our baths, Jaguars in our drives, or six digits in our bank accounts. He’s talking about steadfastness and longevity in following the known will of God in our lives. He’s talking about “growing up” in the faith. He’s talking about putting childish and selfish things behind us. He’s talking about acquiring a genuinely Christ-like mindset. Herein is maturity and completion.

Allow the fruit of patience to grow in your life.

Perhaps the greatest lesson to be learned here, one that we needs desperately to be instilled into our lives, is that the Holy Spirit never does things impatiently and outside of God’s perfect time.

I once heard it said, “God’s will done outside of God’s timing is not God’s will.”

It’s easy to outrun the Holy Spirit as he orchestrates the will of God. We can know God’s will and still miss doing God’s will when we insist that his will be done our way and in our timing.

To accomplish God’s will it’s important that we operate in concert with the Holy Spirit as he brings God’s will about. It may appear to us that God is extremely slow at times. He doesn’t always work at a pace that we are comfortable with. There are those few occasions when we have to run to keep up with what he’s doing. However, most of the time this is far from being the norm. But he does know what he’s doing and we have to learn to work in harmony with his schedule.

©David Kralik Ministries, Inc. 2003
Email: matthewfivesix@hotmail.com