Driving back from Yosemite National Park on a winding, two-lane road for the first couple hours, there was no way to pass. Occasionally, there would be a turn-out designed by the road’s engineers to ease the pain of the trailing drivers. Yet that would involve the slow drivers in the front using the turn-outs! I was muttering to myself about the selfishness of the drivers in front, seemingly for hours, before finally arriving in a town. Needing to use the restroom, I continued on in the slow march home, knowing that if I pulled off, the few I had managed to creep past would again be ahead of me. Funeral procession or not, I finally realized that it truly didn’t matter what time I arrived home. Once I arrived, would a few hours truly change my life? It was a great reminder of the importance of walking in the Spirit, as one of the fruits of the Spirit is patience.
I always thought that was what a successful doctor had a lot of! Yet patience is abiding under difficult circumstances. It could be following inconsiderate drivers down a curvy, mountain road. It could be struggling to love and support a friend rolling in sin like a pig in mud. It could be waiting on the Lord to renew your strength. Regardless of the situation that the Lord puts us in, we know that He is inordinately patient with us!
Through my frustration in traffic, I prayed for patience, then immediately thought that to be a mistake. Solomon asked God for wisdom, and God gave it to him because it revealed Solomon’s heart to have compassion for the people. Yet when praying for patience, in order to teach that patience, the Lord can place us into some extremely difficult circumstances! It isn’t much different than praying to be placed in prison! God will certainly teach us peace through the midst of the fire. Truly, I do want more patience, and I know that God will help me through the learning process. When we continue to have peace like a river flowing through us in the midst of dire circumstances, we know the meaning of patience.
Jesus told His disciples:
By your patience possess your souls.
Luke 21: 19
Paul highlighted patience as a necessary virtue in any ministry God places us into:
3 We give no offense in anything, that our ministry may not be blamed. 4 But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God: in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, 5 in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings; 6 by purity, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love…
2 Corinthians 6:3-6
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