Wednesday Koinonia 23/5/2012: Fruits of the Spirit: [4] PATIENCE (Reflection led by Rob Perkins)

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (Galations 5:23).

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Preamble (by Rowland): 

Our model of patience is God, who is ‘slow to anger’ (eg. Jonah 4:2, cf. Romans 2:4, 9.22, 1 Timothy 1:16, 1 Peter 3:20); Jesus (1 Peter 2:20-24).

There are two common NT words for patience/endurance – makrothumia (patience with persons), and hypermone (putting up with things/ circumstances) . Find a concordance with which you can do a word-study to see where these two differing but complementary concepts are mentioned in the NT. 

Basic idea in terms of Christian maturity: we ‘learn patience/endurance’ through trials/troubles (see especially Romans 5:3-4). A young man asked a wise old pastor to pray for patience for him. The old man began to pray: ‘Lord, give this young man trouble tomorrow, and send him trouble the next day, and…’ The young man interrupted him: ‘I didn’t ask you to pray for trouble, I asked you to pray for patience…’ Response: ‘but you can’t have one without the other’.

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• Patience is a virtue — we’ve all heard that many times. Yet, we have always felt that though we “know” patience is important, it remains one of life’s greatest lessons.

• In this “day and age” of instant gratification, it sometimes seems that patience is a forgotten commodity. It is somewhat like the joke that goes “God grant me patience, and give it to me right away.”

• Webster’s dictionary defines [being] patient as:
1. enduring pain, trouble, etc. without complaint
2. calmly tolerating insult, delay, confusion, etc.
3. showing calm endurance
4. diligent; persevering.

• To have patience is to have faith… in ourselves, in our fellow humans, in life in general.

• When we are working on a project we have patience (faith) that it will work out and that we will be successful in attaining the goal we have set. Yet there are times when we give up, we lose faith, we lose patience, with ourselves and with others.

• Sometimes we are impatient for something to end, and sometimes for something to begin. But always, impatience denotes a lack of acceptance of what is “the now”.

• If we look at the reasons for our impatience, they always show dissatisfaction with the present. We want something other than that we have now.

• Sometimes we let our impatience turn into judgment and anger, and we create mini-wars within our families, our workplace, our neighbourhood. We let our impatience with the way things are be a cause of division between ourselves and others.

• If we had patience we would see that all these things are transitory. Just as the baby learning to walk or talk has a learning process in which it makes mistakes — and tries again and again — we too make mistakes and must try and try again.

• What is needed most in times of challenge, whether personal challenges, relationship challenges, or universal challenges, is to have faith in ourselves and faith in the human race. Sometimes, that faith (patience), is most needed with those closest to us. It seems easier to be judgmental than be supportive. But the price we pay is great.

• We cannot change anyone else. We can only change ourselves. And the magical thing is that the more we become accepting (of ourselves and others), the more loving we become, the less judgmental and critical, the more the people around us (including ourselves) are able to change.

• Love is the answer — it is the key to unlocking the future we have dreamed of. Yet, we cannot start by asking “the others” to love us unconditionally, if we don’t first love ourselves and them unconditionally… without judgment, without criticism, without impatience.

• It is not an easy road, but once we open our hearts to patience, faith, unconditional love and acceptance, the path does get easier.

Questions for discussion (time permitting)

• Has prayer been helpful with overcoming your impatience?
• What other words were in that reflection are complimentary with patience?
• Should we always turn the other cheek to those who test our patience (suffer in silence) or encourage them in seeking help? In what way?
• Can impatience ever be a good thing? When, how?
• How should we handle our impatience with God?