Bear Much Fruit: Patience

“May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might,
for all endurance and patience with joy.”
-Colossians 1:11

Strength and patience walk hand in hand. This is why Paul prayed for the church in Collosae to be strengthened with all power in order to be patient. Patience requires great inner strength.

Take a minute to read through this definition of patience: “The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset—calmly enduring pain and trying situations.”

I don’t know about you, but there are days (which occur more often than I’d like to admit) when this level of patience seems completely out of my grasp. And yet, patience is expected of us as believers. All throughout Scripture, God asks us to be patient. 

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him (Psalm 37:7).
Be patient in tribulation (Romans 12:12).
With patience, bear with one another in love (Ephesians 4:2).
Patiently endure suffering (2 Corinthians 1:6).

The need for patience implies a trying circumstance, and because of the curse of sin, affliction is something that we will continually be facing. Notice the words that accompany patience in those verses. Be still. Bear with. Endure. Wait. Patience is no easy task. The suffering in our lives stretches from conflict to cancer to the death of a child, and continues day after day after day. With each of these trials comes a period of waiting. We are always in a season of waiting for something.

Waiting for a positive pregnancy test, a job offer, reconciliation with a friend, a raise, recovery from an injury or illness. The list goes on.

But all of this waiting is not a roadblock in God’s sovereign plan for your life; it is a part of it. The truth is, even in the waiting, He is molding you into a greater likeness of Himself. Every trial is an opportunity to develop patience and trust as we surrender to His perfect will. They are each an opportunity to move toward the very heart of God.

However, it is clear in Scripture that what we are to most patiently be waiting for is the Lord Himself.

Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord (James 5:7).
Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD (Psalm 27:14).

Waiting for the Lord is the antithesis of impatience—it’s not giving up in despair, trying to take control or take short cuts, or running ahead of Him. Waiting for the Lord is an ever deepening willingness to wait for God where you are as you submit to His perfect plan and timing.

Impatience on the other hand springs up in our hearts when we begin to doubt God’s plan, sovereignty, wisdom, timing, goodness, or guidance. It is fueled by distrust. When we do not rest in the promises of His Word, we grow restless. We try to take the reins for ourselves in an effort to make things move a little faster or in a different direction. 

“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His Word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.”
-Psalm 130:5, 6

Patience is the fruit of faith. Whenever circumstances go differently than we desired or imagined, patience chooses to believe that, in everything, God is still good and is working all things for our good and His glory. Patience trusts that God can and will complete everything that He begins. Patience is having confidence that God’s understanding is best, while our understanding is incomplete and limited. It is the relentless assurance that nothing can stand in the way of God’s purposes. 

How is this daunting task accomplished? How are we to increase in patience? If you look back up at Psalm 130, you can see that we are given a very important clue as to how we can develop patience in our own lives.

”I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His Word I hope;”

If patience demands inner strength, then hope is what sustains that strength, and our hope is grounded in the Word of God. When you are inclined to be impatient before God, when you are tempted to give up on Him or go against Him, take up the Word of God and speak His promises to your soul. This is the way you will win the battle against impatience!

“Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
-Isaiah 40:31

You fight impatience by using the promises of God to persuade your heart that God’s plan, sovereignty, wisdom, timing, goodness, and guidance are able to take your sorrow, your disappointments, your loss, and your frustrations and create something eternally beautiful out of them. And during the waiting, you are offered strength with which you can soar like an eagle. 

So, whether you are waiting for another day, another month, another year, or fifty years, will you choose to submit to and wait on the trustworthy One, acknowledging that through it all He is in control? Will you choose to embrace His plan for your life and rest in God, knowing that He will give you all the strength you need to be patient?

“For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”
-Isaiah 30:15

“No eye has seen a God besides you, who works for those who wait for Him.”
-Isaiah 64:4

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Ashlee is the Editorial Coordinator for Hope Mommies and author of I AM (Hope Mommies, 2017) and Identity (Hope Mommies, 2018). She and her husband, Jesse, live in Milwaukee with their children—five on earth and two in heaven.

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