Perhaps you have heard the impatient man’s prayer. It goes something like this: “Lord, I need patience, and I need it RIGHT NOW!”
In a world filled with discourteous drivers, selfish or thoughtless customers, personality conflicts with coworkers and the constant demands of children and family, we often need
patience just to keep it together!
There is an old Dutch proverb that says, “A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.” Experience often shows that a patient person will make better decisions and see more favorable outcomes in life than a very intelligent person who doesn’t have the patience to wait for the right time and opportunity.
Leonardo da Vinci is credited with saying, “Patience serves as protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.”
In Galatians 5:22 the apostle Paul recorded a list of characteristics that are borne of God’s Spirit. The fourth one on the list is “longsuffering,” better understood today as patience. It is an attribute of the Creator God, and something that is very important for a Christian to possess as well.
Patience can protect our minds and emotions, but it can also guide us to think and view the struggle of life in a proper manner. Let’s look at two primary ways patience applies to us.
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