The Virtue of Patience | Monday Devotional with Jessica Wyatt on @ShesIntentional
Have you ever been in line waiting to make your purchase and the person behind you is so impatient that she fumes with an immense amount of anger and frustration. To the extent that she makes everyone else feel extremely uncomfortable and creates an unpleasant mood in the atmosphere?
All in all, life is full of hapless moments that bring us all to anger, frustration, anxiety, sadness and so forth. In our human tendencies, we all want the “now” without the “wait.” Yet even the right thing at the wrong time can still make it a “wrong.”
It’s during these times of waiting with patience that shape us into the person God desires us to be. These times bring us a respectable air of wisdom and understanding. Its during those times that we lean on God and learn to walk with Him. In our natural humanity, when we tend to get the slightest bit impatient, we start to lose sight of the important things and veer off track. We fill our minds with unprofitable and invaluable things that creep in our thoughts solely as a means to speed the process of time.
Having patience requires having the ability to shut everything troublesome off from the world and tune-in to the voice of God. Allowing Him to be the remedy for your afflictions of human endurance. Sis. Melanie Shock stated this previously this year at the Indiana Ladies Conference, “Don’t Hate the Wait.” In other words, be joyful in your time of waiting and seek the favor of God by praying without ceasing.
“Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer” {Romans 12:12}
Rejoice in hope? How do we rejoice in hope? Well, first of all, if we truly have patience then we have hope that whatever it is we are waiting on or for will come to pass through faith in God. But, in the meantime, we rejoice in hope and our hope is in the Lord. And by rejoicing in hope, we will renew strength and find all we need in Him.
I believe that the key to having patience is maintaing a daily prayer life. As Pastor Mark Abernathy stated a couple Sundays ago, “How can we walk with someone we don’t even talk to?” In other words, how can we walk with God if we don’t talk to Him and learn His timing for our lives and begin to develop a character that is patient? If you read the above scripture, continuous prayer follows right after being patient in tribulation. But we must be patience in any situation. Patience isn’t just enduring to the end but finding the right attitude during the wait. We will find that right attitude during patience through our hope in the Lord.
Look back into Biblical history and you will find many women of God who endured the wait. What they didn’t do, however, is hate the wait. They sought the favor of God in their time of long-suffering and forbearance. When they felt temptation arise, they prayed. When they felt fearful and lonely, they prayed. When they felt like giving up and hopeless, they prayed. When they had every enemy rise against them and sought to destroy them, they prayed. Ladies, without prayer it is impossible to have peace and joy as a means to endure the wait. Engage in prayer in with God and you will develop the virtue of patience.