Patience is Learned
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~5 min read
Hi there, welcome to Well Lit Soul. Where we seek God, face darkness, and shine brighter. This season of the blog is all about learning. So today’s blog is called: Patience is Learned.
One of my favorite things to do is watch YouTube videos about people caring for their houseplants. I typically kill plants with kindness, so I get a lot of excitement from watching other people successfully care for their photosynthesis friends. I’m particularly in awe of those people who look like they live in a jungle. I really want that to be my reality, but I will have to put a lot of work in to get to that space. It requires a lot of time, learning, money, and patience. Not rushing to the end result, but carefully moving through each step to grow and nurture a rich collection of plants. I got to see one of the YouTubers I follow learn this lesson in real time.
She had a stunning monstera plant that was sprouting a new leaf. And while admiring this new growth, she was eager to see it unfold. So much so that she slowly pulled the leaf open to take a peek to see how large it would be. And it was a wonderful size! That fresh bright green was wonderful to behold. But when she took her hands away from the leaf to stand back and look from a distance, it immediately flopped over flat and open. She couldn’t roll it back to its closed state to finish growing. And unfortunately, that new leaf withered and died before it had a chance to really live.
And the takeaway from this lesson could be ‘she should’ve been more patient’. But what does that really entail? When I hear the word patient used like this, it sounds like the idea is to sit down and wait for it to be ready. Kind of like if you have cookies or lasagna in the oven and you have to wait for them to cook and then wait again for them to cool. You really just want to dig in, but it’s not ready so you just stare at the oven or the timer until it goes off. This kind of waiting seems torturous because most of your thoughts are focused on the desires you have that are currently unmet and counting down the slow seconds until it’s time. All while trying to not be anxious, annoyed, or angry about the delay. Working to accept or at least tolerate the passing minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years.
But I don’t think this is the best approach to patience. This idle waiting with your attention consumed by the counting down of the clock seems like a miss. Especially if you apply that approach to waiting on the Lord. Patience and long suffering are often referred to interchangeably in the bible, see 1 Corinthians 13:4 in the NKJV and NIV. But the agony of watching time pass is not the kind of suffering scripture talks about.
Whenever I see patience mentioned in scripture, it is shown as something active. When people were told to be patient, some of the things they were called to do in their waiting were to:
Rest, slow down, don’t rush - Psalms 37:7
Trust in the Lord - Matthew 6:32-34
Bear fruit - Luke 8:15
Continue doing good - Romans 2:7
Grow in His strength and power - Colossians 1:9-12
Serve the Lord - 2 Timothy 2:24
Be diligent and hopeful to the end, not sluggish Hebrews 6:11-12
Become whole and complete within - James 1:2-4
Work within God’s timing and establish your heart - James 5:7-8
Persevere, endure hardship, suffer - Revelation 2:2-3
All of this yields spiritual growth. Which is why patience is a fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. When you learn the patience of Christ and follow the God of patience, you become more like them. As Romans 15:4-6 says,
4 For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. 5 Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, 6 that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And patience is important to learn because things take time with God. We’ve talked about planting seeds in our physical and spiritual gardens, but God did the same thing. Not only yielding fruit from the earth, but bringing forth His Seed, Jesus, to fulfill His promise to make us free as His children, Galatians 3:19-29. Although He created the heavens and the earth and everything within it in six days, it took thousands of years to fulfill the covenant He established in Genesis with the resurrection and ascension of Jesus in the Gospels and Acts.
Ultimately, patience, like all aspects of Christianity, is an opportunity to be transformed. To change with, through, and because of God to be more like Him. So as we work on patience together, instead of focusing on the time passing, let’s turn our hearts and minds to how we can actively grow in the process.
Connection Question: What typically comes to your mind when you think about patience? Why do you think the scriptures refer to patience as long-suffering? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to connect with you about it.
