Battling Impatience

In God’s Place, At God’s Pace, By Future Grace!

James 5:7-11- “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful”

Yesterday I shared what the Lord had been showing me through the chapter on “Patience” out of the book “The Fruitful Life.” Well, I’ve also been reading through John Piper’s book “Battling Unbelief” and it just so happens that I’m reading through the chapter on “Patience” in this book as well. I don’t find it ironic that I’ve come across different chapters on “patience” in two completely different books in the SAME week. It just amazes me how creative the Lord is when it comes to ministering to His children. These two chapters have helped me tremendously and I’m oh so grateful for them!

Here are a few things I pulled out of this chapter "Battling Impatience":

“Impatience is a form of unbelief. It’s what we begin to feel when we start to doubt the wisdom of God’s timing or the goodness of God’s guidance. It springs up in our hearts when our plan in interrupted or shattered.”

Patience is a deepening, ripening, peaceful willingness to wait for God in the unplanned place of obedience, and to walk with God at the unplanned pace of obedience. Patience means to “wait and endure.” We need to trust God to make all barriers blessings. The glorious might of God that we need to see and trust is the power of God to turn all our detours and obstacles into glorious outcomes. If we believed that our hold-up at the long red light was God’s keeping us back from an accident about to happen, we would be patient and happy. If we believe that our broken leg was God’s way of revealing early cancer in the x-ray so that we would survive, we would not be irritated with that inconvenience. If we believe that the middle-of-the night phone call was God’s way of waking us to smell smoke in our house, we would not grumble at the loss of sleep. The key to patience is to have faith in God’s grace on our lives to transform all our interruptions into rewards.

When we have patience, it sustains us! In every unplanned frustration, God’s Word holds true:

Jeremiah 32:40-41- “I will not turn away from doing good to them… I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.”

“Impatient complaining is therefore a form of unbelief that God is not in control!”

Psalm 23:6- “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me ALL the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord FOREVER.”

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace.
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face
-William Cowper

Lamentations 3:25- “The Lord is good to those who WAIT for him.”