Patience With Circumstances
In every Christian’s life, there comes a time when we must wait for something to happen. Patience of this type asserts itself in two main ways:
waiting to achieve a goal and enduring a trial. There is frequent overlap between the two, but the key thing is that in both circumstances, our impatience is not directed outward towards others, but upward towards God.
Just as we get annoyed when our children can’t wait for us, I imagine this bothers God. A lot. But we can give thanks that His response to us is to give us another chance, and another, and another.
Read and Learn More How Leaders Can Cultivate Patience in an Impatient World ?
It is often said that the lessons we learn and the person we become while enduring a trial of circumstance can mold us into better and stronger Christians. In fact, James tells us to consider these trials a joy:
When troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.
So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. (James 1:2-4) One thing is sure: we can all use some continuing education to build our patience with trying circumstances.
Waiting to Achieve a Goal
Perhaps you want to start a business, lose weight, or find a mate. Or you may dream of earning a million dollars, starting a charity, or climbing a fourteener.
There are as many possible goals as there are people on this earth, and God has given us all the desire to strive for the things we don’t have:
Despite your best efforts, it hasn’t happened the way you had hoped yet, which is frustrating, especially when Satan is so quick to show you other people who are making it big time in whatever area you have set your goal.
Did God forget about me? Worse, does he just not care? Even worse, is he out to get me? Despite our commitment to walk with the Lord, most of us have whispered these same questions at one time or another when our dreams haven’t happened at the speed and intensity we want them to.
“Timing is so important! If you are going to be successful in dance, you must be able to respond to rhythm and timing. It’s the same in the Spirit.
People who don’t understand God’s timing can become spiritually spastic, trying to make the right things happen at the wrong time.
They don’t get His rhythm – and everyone can tell they are out of step. They birth things prematurely, threatening the very lives of their God-given dreams.” T. D. Jakes, We often forget that God’s timing is not necessarily our timing.
Just because we think something should happen by a particular time, that doesn’t mean our worldly goal fits in with God’s heavenly plan. We know that God loves us and wants to give us the desires of our hearts.
But it is often so hard not to grab onto the controls and try to make it happen on our own. We need a good deal of patience in these situations. It helps to remember at these times that God’s Word is full of his promises of perfect timing:
Then the Lord said to me, “Write my answer plainly on tablets so that a runner can carry the correct message to others. This vision is for a future time.
It describes the end, and it will be fulfilled. If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed.
No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead. So let’s not get tired of doing what is good.
Enduring a Trial
Sometimes bad stuff just happens to us that requires our patient endurance. Maybe you or someone you love is going through a dangerous illness, has been laid off, or is suffering an addiction.
Perhaps you are still looking for your soul mate or are unable to conceive a child. Being patient through a trial can be very hard. Physical and mental limitations keep our negative vibrations in focus and push our natural positive emotions back.
It’s hard to see how God is working in the situation and, unlike working toward a goal, it often seems as though there is little we can do to improve it.
The sobering truth is that the world is full of sin, and because of that, life will be hard at times. To be patient at these times, we need to prepare ourselves in advance and accept that things won’t always go as we wish or plan.
I was taking a hike with my daughter a few months back, and we came to a river crossing. We stopped for a while, and my daughter discovered some beautiful rocks and pebbles polished by the force of the water brushing the rocks against each other.
Before the river’s powerful current transformed these rocks into beautiful treasures to be discovered by my eight-year-old, the intense water pressure had to pound on the rubble for hundreds of years.
It wasn’t a gentle or pleasant process. And the inherent nature of the stones didn’t change; they were still the same old rocks. And yet, through an intense and even fierce process, what once was average and easy to overlook had become a young girl’s prize.
Because the process is so unbearably slow, we often miss the incredible changes that life’s erosion is causing in us.
If we can patiently endure and trust that God has our back through our trials, we will start to discover hidden strengths and qualities that we didn’t know we had before.
We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. We give great honor to those who endure suffering. For instance, you know about Job, a man of great endurance.