The Patience of God and of His Children

God has been so patient with His children. As we grow in the family likeness, we learn by the Spirit to mimic our heavenly Father. Today, Sinclair Ferguson observes how we develop patience that reflects the character of God.

We’ve been thinking all week about the fruit of the Spirit as Paul describes it in Galatians 5, and I’ve been reading out the verses because, that way, I hope we’ll memorize these wonderful words of the Apostle Paul almost without effort: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

And so, at the end of the week, we’ve come to the second triplet of these Spirit-nurtured graces: patience, kindness, and goodness. They do seem, don’t you think, somehow or another to belong together?

Patience. The New Testament has two different Greek words that can be translated by our English word patience. The word Paul uses here is the word makrothymia. It’s a compound word from makros, which means “long, long in time,” or “long in space, far away,” and thymos, which means “anger” or “passion.”

The Bible teaches us that God is patient. “The Lord is merciful and gracious,” says Psalm 103, “The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”

We sometimes speak about people who have a short fuse, and this word patience suggests that a Christian is someone whose fuse gets longer and longer and longer, even in the face of provocation. You can see where the motivation for this grace comes from, can’t you? It’s because God has been so patient with us. So, as His children, we breathe in the family atmosphere and we learn by the Spirit to mimic Him.

This brings a couple of thoughts to my mind. One is that I’ve met proficient Christians who have said quite openly and without embarrassment and almost with a touch of pride, “I’m the kind of person who doesn’t suffer fools gladly.” I always want to say three words: “Well, Jesus did.” The darker side of me then wants to add, “And you’re one of those fools.” Not being patient with others is not a virtue. It’s a blemish because it means I’m not being like the Lord Jesus.

Now, I know you may be thinking: “But what about this situation? What about that situation? Isn’t there righteous anger?” Well, yes, of course, that’s true. But what Paul is speaking about here is our basic day-to-day instinct and reaction to people, and also to situations, that are challenging or frustrating.

I wonder if you’ve ever been with a Christian who, because of something that has happened, they’ve just lost the plot and a fuse has been lit and they’ve reacted badly momentarily. Then realizing that you are there, they become flustered, and they say something like this: “I don’t know what came over me. I’m really a very patient person.” You know what we want to say, don’t you? It’s this: “Actually, you’re not really a very patient person at all. You’re an impatient person whose patience level has never really been tested. It’s been tested now, and you’ve just failed the test.” This leads to what I think is a very important thought—that patience can only develop through being in situations likely to create impatience in us. So long as our patience is never tested, it never grows.

When Paul says that the fruit of the Spirit is patience, it’s not as though the Spirit gives us a permanent commodity. It is that the Spirit works in us, transforming us gradually, perhaps even gently and slowly, but surely, bringing us into situations that might cause us to be impatient. But as He works in our lives and we reflect on how wonderfully patient the Lord has been with us, we find that we are able to take the strain, and patience begins to develop.

We won’t be coming back to this until next week, which means there’s a couple of days before then when your patience, and perhaps my patience, is going to be tested. But let’s pray together that by God’s grace it will also grow.