Worth the Wait: The Power of Patience

By Victor M. Parachin

Agitated that the driver of the car in front of her didn”t go when the light turned green, a woman began screaming and making obscene gestures. Finally, after the light turned yellow, the first driver suddenly accelerated through the intersection, leaving the woman to wait for another green light.

The woman was still screaming and pounding her steering wheel when a police officer, with gun drawn, arrested her.

After she was searched, photographed, fingerprinted, and placed in a cell for an hour, the same officer came to release her. But first he offered an explanation.

“I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, making obscene hand gestures, swearing, and shouting at the man in front of you. I noticed the “˜Choose Life” license plate holder; the “˜What Would Jesus Do?” and “˜Follow me to Sunday School” bumper stickers; and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car.”

That story, though only an urban legend, indicates a sad truth about our culture: we are people who have lost the virtue of patience.

Sensing this trait in humanity, the Bible repeatedly exhorts people of faith to exercise patience and to continuously cultivate this virtue. The apostle Paul identifies patience as a key virtue of the spiritual life: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience . . .” (Galatians 5:22). He advised Christians in Rome, “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer” (Romans 12:12).

Jesus taught, “By standing firm, you will gain life” (Luke 21:19).

The Old Testament prophet Habakkuk reinforces the importance of patience, advising, “Though it linger, wait for it” (Habakkuk 2:3).

Behind these statements is this understanding: patience is the ability to wait and work for a successful outcome. The virtue of patience contains seeds of tolerance, restraint, and perseverance. Without patience, we run the risk of sabotaging our life goals and dreams. Here are five strategies for developing patience.

1. Be flexible. Meetings may not start on time. Friends may be late for lunch. Road construction may delay you. Projects may have setbacks. Deadlines may be missed.

Such events are common in life. A rigid approach to them only serves to fuel frustration and impatience. Be flexible with the unexpected, and unexpected benefits will come your way.

2. Allow life to be your instructor in patience. Let the events of daily life, whether large or small, be the source of your education in patience. For example:

Be patient when you are mistreated and you don”t know why, when you must wait, or when you are sick.

Be patient when you”ve been gossiped about or criticized or when you”re facing resistance.

Be patient when you lose a job or when you”re hunting for a job.

Be patient when your children frustrate you or your stepchildren avoid you.

Be patient when a friend fails to come through or someone turns against you.

3. Change the flow of your thinking. Often we need to change the flow of our thinking in order to develop great patience and reap the benefits. In viewing any situation, we can think in ways that exasperate us or exhilarate us.

Consider minister and author John C. Maxwell”s experience when he and his wife, Margaret, took 50 people to tour the Holy Land. “Margaret and I are super planners, so in the space of a week, we saw more sights than many thought was humanly possible. But by the time we were headed back home, everyone was exhausted,” he recalls. When the group arrived in Paris from Tel Aviv at midmorning, an agent told them their flight to New York was canceled due to a major snowstorm on the Atlantic coast. “Nothing is going in or out for the next 24 hours,” the agent explained.

Maxwell and his wife immediately sensed disappointment and frustration among the group, which included many older, first-time international travelers. “The major break in our travel plans was likely to send them into panic.” Knowing they had to act, Maxwell and his wife said to the group: “This is great. We”ve got an awesome opportunity here,” and announced they were going to take a tour of Paris. Quickly they arranged for a bus, loaded the group, and gave them a whirlwind tour of Paris.

“Take lots of pictures,” the Maxwells kept saying. “You”ll want to show everyone when you get home how you got an extra trip to Paris.”

Soon everyone was delighted with this unexpected opportunity. They even spotted pop singer Madonna coming out of the Louvre surrounded by bodyguards. Everyone took pictures of her.

“After we got home, our people had meaningful memories of Israel and the awe-inspiring places there. But their favorite story was about their one-day side trip to Paris,” he says.

4. Live in the present. Much of our impatience is due to our inability to be accepting and comfortable with events and situations as they present themselves. Cherie Carter-Scott, PhD, and author of If Life Is a Game, These Are the Rules, explains:

Living in the present brings the one thing most people spend their lives striving to achieve: peace. Relaxing into the present moment puts you in the mental and physical state of calm, quiet, and tranquility and finally gets us off the here-but-gotta-get-there treadmill. If you are in the moment of doing whatever you are doing, then there is not time to examine the gap between your expectation and the reality of how things are, or between where you are and where you think you should be. You are too busy being in the moment to analyze it and find fault with it.

5. Practice patience with yourself. Reversing the habit of impatience can take time. Rather than berate yourself when you have a relapse into impatience, embrace the biblical teaching to “throw off everything that hinders” (Hebrews 12:1). Throw off any feelings of guilt over a moment of impatience and continue working at it. Remember to be patient with yourself. If you become discouraged because you were impatient, recall this wisdom from author Eknath Easwaran: “Patience can”t be acquired overnight. It is just like building up a muscle. Every day you need to work on it.

 

 

Victor Parachin is an author and freelance journalist writing from Tulsa, Oklahoma. This is the fourth in his series on the fruit of the Spirit appearing throughout 2008.