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Synonyms
for patience include long suffering, and endurance. Patience is a
fruit of the Holy Spirit in us, because in our own natural senses we
cannot be long suffering. Our flesh is the enemy of the Holy Spirit
in our lives. God intends our flesh to be the servant of the
indwelling Holy Spirit in us; however flesh always wants to be in
control. The purpose of the cross is to crucify the flesh and make
it submit to the Holy Spirit. Our flesh hates to suffer, and hates
it even more to suffer long. Flesh therefore reacts with anger.
However, whatever the flesh says is irrelevant and we must be
completely indifferent to it. When Jesus said to pick up our crosses
everyday, He meant that we need to suffer. To suffer long is against
everything that our natural mind and society tells us.
Frustration is the perception that there is an obstacle between us
and our goal. If that perceived obstacle is time, then impatience
breeds frustration and anger. A certain sign of impatience is anger.
A patient person is generally slow to anger. Patience therefore
breeds peace of mind, while impatience steals our peace and gives us
nothing but frustration and anger.
Patience is
required in all relationships. Patience is required in our
relationship with God and it is required in our relationships with
our fellow man. In this life we need patience in dealing with other
human beings. We live in a fallen world and none of us are perfect
and this is why patience is required. If we are patient with people
and long suffering with them, then it predisposes us to be forgiving
and to overcome anger.
The key to
overcoming impatience is to have a vision of some reward. Jesus
endured the cross, and suffered through it because he saw his
reward. You need to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you are
not waiting or suffering in vain but that there is certainly a
reward at the end of the waiting and the suffering. That is the key.
Seeing your reward will prevent you from becoming weary in well
doing. Jesus had the strength to endure the suffering of the cross
because He was looking ahead to His reward. Habits, whether good or
bad develop and continue over time because in our brain we have some
perceived reward from it. People get addicted to different things
and continue to do them because the reward centers in their brains
are stimulated by a particular thing or activity. We can be free of
any addiction if we are willing to make God our deepest desire and
our only true reward in this life. That is the whole truth because
everything else but God leaves us empty.
We can use this
hard wiring of our brains to become patient and long suffering as
long as we are constantly mindful that there are great rewards for
patience. We can experience any miracle we want if we are willing to
wait on the Lord. Marvelous outpourings of His Holy Spirit await us
if we are willing to wait on the Lord. We can experience His
manifest presence only if we wait on Him. If you wait on the Lord He
will notice you sooner or later. If you wait on the Lord He will
hear your prayer. We can see the sick healed and the dead raised to
life if we can wait on the Lord and hold on to faith and pay the
price and pass the test of time. Waiting on the Lord shows God that
we are truly serious and not merely curious about Him. God is
looking for the serious not the merely curious.
What is waiting
on the Lord? Waiting on the Lord means putting everything else aside
just to serve Him and His needs and to spend time with Him. In a
very practical sense waiting on the Lord can involve fasting, prayer
and meditation. It can involve quietly focusing on him and soaking
silently in His presence until we are absolutely saturated with Him.
Waiting on the Lord means giving Him a comfortable place and
allowing His Holy Spirit to love on us and to love Him in return
that His Holy Spirit may find a place of rest in us.
We wait because
we have a vision which gives us real hope of experiencing His
presence even more. We wait because of our vision and hope of seeing
His supernatural miraculous power in our life. We wait because we
are looking ahead like Jesus, to our reward for waiting. Waiting
before God involves prayer and fasting and diligently seeking Him.
Hebrews says that God is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek
Him. Spending time with Him only, He is our Master and we are His
servant. Servants wait on their master and meet His every wish. Such
servants have a great reward of their master.
In practice
fasting is ignoring the voice of the flesh and listening to the
Spirit. Fasting involves being indifferent to the voice of the flesh
and never letting its thoughts enter our minds while being sensitive
and mindful to the voice of the Spirit. We must understand that
everything the flesh says is irrelevant and must not be meditated on
or dwelt on, but only what the Spirit says is relevant and we must
meditate on what the Spirit says and be mindful of what He wants.
When Abraham left the land of His father, the bible says that he was
not mindful of the country that he came out of. His flesh was
comfortable in the land that he came out of but he was not mindful
of it, which is why he was able to continue moving and living in
faith.
When God
promises us something, He never fulfills it in our time, but rather
in His own timing. He tests us with the dimension of time and we
must have and develop the character to pass the test of time. What
are we supposed to do with that time? God expects us to use that
time to know Him. God expects us to use that time to keep trusting
him and to keep living by faith and in so doing remain loyal and
faithful. Time really tests our faith. God will never put you in a
situation that does not require faith. This is why many times God
will command us to leave our comfort zones so that we have no choice
but to trust Him.
Patience is very
much akin to self control, fruit of the same vine and requires
discipline. Learning can often be a painful process, and there are
two types of pain in life, there is the pain of discipline and the
pain of regret. The scripture tells us that no discipline is
pleasant but painful. If we have patience and our flesh suffers long
and accept his discipline there will be a reward for us.
Will you wait on
the Lord and accept His discipline when He wants us to suffer long
and receive a reward for it? Or will you be weary in well doing and
suffer the pain of regret and gain no reward for it? The choice is
yours. In life you will either suffer the pain of discipline or the
pain of regret. There is no escaping it if we are to learn. |
