By: Phil Hopkins
One of the more common requests that people make is to have more patience. We all realize the importance of patience in dealing with others. When life gets stressful, when we are under pressure from others, even though we know that we should be patient, the various stresses of life can get the better of us and we act inappropriately. James reminds us of the importance of being patient in life: James 5:10 “Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. 11 Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.” Websters defines patience as the ability to accept or tolerate delays, problems, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious. Looking even further from where this word came, we find it coming from the word ‘suffering’, originating from the old French verb pati, meaning to suffer. The word patience carries the thought of having control when suffering and doing it with fortitude; the uncomplaining endurance of evils or wrongs. As we dig into the word even deeper, we find that the Greek word for patience, “hupomone” means: cheerful (or hopeful) endurance, constancy:–enduring, patience, patient continuance (waiting). With this meaning, we can understand why patience is closely coupled with self-control. In fact, patience is one way of showing our self-control. This is the same self-control which in Galatians 5 is one of the aspects of the fruit of the spirit. Most of us want more patience in life but few of us want to do what it takes to grow our patience. Again, James gives us one way to gain patience: James 1:3 “Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. 4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” As James tells us, the “trying of our faith”, as our faith is tried or tested and we overcome, we will gain patience. Like many things in life, we will gain patience as we exercise our self-control and overcome the trial. The problem is that few of us want to go through such a test. We tend to avoid those situations and our patience suffers or we overcome to a point but then “lose it” and explode – our patience is not to be found. With our physical bodies, we know that it will be strengthened through ongoing consistent exercise. Inconsistent or irregular exercise has no payoff in our strengthening, it may ever damage or hurt us. Similarly, we must consistently, regularly work to develop more patience. This idea of strengthening is brought out in Paul’s prayer to the Colossians : Col. 1:11 “Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness;” Paul’s desire for them was to be strengthened – to achieve this strengthening, they would need to follow what Paul said in vs. 10 “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;” In other words, they would need to walk worthy, be fruitful and increase in the knowledge of God. They had three items to do. Their strengthening required their actions, it wasn’t going to happen by their passively sitting around. They needed “to fight to good fight” I Timothy 6:12), to not only grow in knowledge but get out there and “walk worthy of the Lord”. Christianity requires us to take action. Our actions will help us to develop our patience. Notice that in Colossians 1:10 that long-suffering is attached to patience. Again looking at the Greek word for long-suffering makrothumia meaning: longanimity, i.e. (objectively) forbearance or (subjectively) fortitude:–longsuffering, patience. As we can see this word is directly related to patience. Our English word long-suffering means: bearing injuries or provocation for a long time; patient; not easily provoked. Forbearance to punish or resent. Both of these words carry the concept of bearing up under pain, stress, and discomfort for the long term. In the Old Testament, we find God as being described as being Long-suffering: Ex. 34:6 “And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth”, God will hold His rewards for man, he is long-suffering if man will come around to obeying God. This thought is brought forth in: Rom. 2:4 “Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” Here we find that if we succumb to the burdens of life and realize and turn and repent from our error God will give us of His goodness, but we also need to notice that God’s patience, His long-suffering is to be a pattern for our lives. Even the long-suffering of Jesus Christ is an example for each of us: 1 Timothy 1:16 “Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.” Paul told us that Jesus Christ came into this world as an example, Paul recognized that he lead a sinful life before he obeyed the Gospel but that Christ was long-suffering towards him and mankind and that as Paul obtained mercy we also can obtain mercy. Once we receive that mercy we are to be patient and long-suffering towards others. We will find that patience implies the quietness or self-possession of one’s own spirit, under sufferings, or provocations. This is what we are to develop, Christian growth, and realize that growth is much more than gaining knowledge. It is also taking action. It is using the knowledge to move us to action. If I can paraphrase an answer the brother Marshall Keeble gave to one asking about judging another. His response was that he could be a fruit inspector. Most folks sit around and complain about one thing or another not going the way that they think it should, but that is as far as it goes. They never get up and take action. Yes, taking action is work, taking action may require us to do things that are very uncomfortable for us. But taking action will bear fruit, we will grow, others will grow. We may not solve the problems that got us moving in the first place, but growth will occur. We will be fulfilling Col. 1:10. We will walk worthy of the Lord. We will be fruitful, we and the church will grow. The question we must answer if someone was inspecting our fruits, would there be enough evidence to convict us of being patient and long-suffering in the Lord?