The Quality of Patience

FedEx or Pony Express!

I’m a FedEx sort of guy. You know, when it absolutely positively has to get their overnight. I don’t think I’d survive in the pony express days when it absolutely positively had to get there three months from now.

Unfortunately God isn’t in the FedEx business. He doesn’t microwave the Fruit of the Spirit into our lives, and that’s because building character takes time.
• It took Moses 40 years. He tried the overnight route killing an Egyptian in the process, so God took him to the backside of the desert until he was ready.
• With Joseph it was years in slavery and prison
• King David spent years tending sheep as a youth, and then years in exile running for his life.
• Paul took years waiting, first in the Arabian Desert, and then in the city of Tarsus.

Patience isn’t something developed in a microwave, rather it’s something developed in a crock-pot where it has time to simmer in its own juices.

The Bible says those that wait upon the Lord, who patiently endure, will renew their strength, Isaiah 40:31. Therefore, if we find your patience waning we need to check our relationship with God, get into God’s word and let God’s word get into us, and then prepare to patiently wait for His promises.

When Abraham patiently endured, the promise came. And when I say patiently endured, that’s what I mean, because it was 25 years after the promise of children that God gave him Isaac.

We all need a little patience, because we don’t live in a perfect world.

Solomon said, “A patient man has great understanding, but a quick-tempered man displays folly.” (Proverbs 14:29)

What is interesting is that the word for patience is made up of two words meaning slow to anger. To be patient means we are to be slow to get angry, or maybe we can say that to be patient is to have a slow fuse, or not boil over.