Misunderstood Patience

One of the greatest, most gravely abused statements is "Patience is a virtue." being used by the tardy crowd.  True patience is a virtue everybody must practice.  Galatians 5:22 lists patience as a result of being saved.  2 Peter 3:9 says God has His patience.  While patience is a virtue however by no means it would exempt the value of punctuality.  Sadly, many people dare to accuse the punctual of lacking patience but is it?  Not at all.  As said, Ephesians 5:11 commands people to redeem the time because the days are evil.  The tardy crowd just can't tell the difference.

Now it's time to define the two:

Patience- Waiting for the right things at the RIGHT TIME without murmuring.  A person does not expect the project to be done immediately but waits for the scheduled timings and attends to them whenever the time arrives thus punctuality is still being displayed.

vs.

Procrastination- Willfully delaying the doing of something THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE. A person does not pay attention to the time table and always does everything at the last minute.

Now for an illustration of patience vs. procrastination.  The teacher has given the whole class at least one month to do a project.  She is patient to the point she would wait for an entire month before the projects go to his/her desk.  However, procrastination can occur here that a student can put everything away until it's the last minute.  Then comes the project that is hurriedly done or never submitted.  Can the student accuse the teacher of not showing patience?  No.  The student however abused the patience of the teacher.  The teacher gave a generous allowance to do the project yet he/she never did the project.  He/she waited patiently for the projects and redeemed her time and then there goes a tardy student who submits no work or bad work- either way it's really bad.

Another illustration would be God Himself throughout the Bible.  God gave Cain the chance to repent and come to Him.  God had give the world at least from Seth to Noah before he destroyed it with water.  God had given Canaan at least 400 years to repent and come to Him.  God allowed Abraham to plead for Sodom five times until it was for the sake of ten people because Lot was in that city.  By looking at these things, God Himself had given all the chances He could much longer than any human could give chances, however they procrastinated and sinned all the more to their OWN DEMISE which was only natural because they rejected His life-changing mercy and grace.  As said, patience always has its limits.

Also here's the reality as well.  Not being punctual is also in its very form of lying.  After all, if one agreed to see each other at 2:00 P.M. and the other agrees, the person becomes a liar when he/she shows up at the wrong time instead.  As said, the person has every right to get mad at being late because he/she still has to do other things and not just to wait for some dilly dallying individual.