Learning Patience by God's Grace

Do you ever get tired of waiting?  The flesh always gets anyone confused.  It is very easy to confuse patience with procrastination as much as it is easy to confuse forgiveness with condoning any form of wrongdoing and seeking revenge is equivalent to getting justice.  It is very easy to say that if you are patient then you are condoning abuse.  That is not what the Bible says but rather it is redeeming the time while waiting for God's perfect timing.

Like it or not, as much as the Bible commands one to to redeem the time (Ephesians 5:16, Colossians 4:5) but one is also commanded to wait.  The problem of being unable to wait has had drastic consequences.  In the Old Testament we read of various examples of what happens when Christians do not wait for God's timing.  Sarah's hastiness led her to make Abraham commit sin with Hagar to produce their heir which today led to several wars between the Jews and Arabs.  When Moses was gone to Sinai, the people's impatience led to idolatry.  Moses' own lack of patience made him forfeit his ticket to the Promised Land.  On the other hand, patience was rewarded unto other people like Isaac and Joseph.  Joseph did not grumble during the two years he was forgotten by the butler.  Isaac and Rebekah did not hastily do what Abraham and Sarah did.

An example of patience is when you are preparing something that takes some time.  A good example is in farming.  Time is redeemed the moment a person uses whatever time he or she has to make sure everything works.  But at the same time, there is patience in knowing that in life there will always be obstacles to doing God's work.  The advice of the Apostle Paul is in Galatians 6:9-10 encourages Christians to do good even if the results are not immediate.  Sometimes doing good can even get you into trouble but there are eternal rewards after that.