Patience is meant to perfect us. James in the Bible tells us, “But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” (James 1:4). Patience isn’t just the ability to wait, but it’s the ability to wait without getting upset, without worrying.
I don’t know about you, but in a “perfect” scenario, I wouldn’t do much waiting. I have a hard time remembering that when I’m made to wait, that it’s in the waiting that God is working. In practicing patience an actual work is being completed in me to make me complete and lacking nothing. Being faced with practicing patience, I most certainly don’t focus on its work leaving me left lacking nothing, rather I often focus on the lack in my life and the thing I’m waiting on.
Practicing patience means believing that as you wait, you will get exactly what you need, that you will not be in lack.
As we continue to be in a season of waiting-waiting for doors to open, waiting for provision, waiting for healing, waiting for direction-I am reminded that as we wait, we must do it with patience, in order to truly get to a state of completion, of lacking nothing. I am also reminded of David the one the Bible calls a “man after God’s own heart” and the example of patience that he was. If I can follow the example of anyone, who better than to look to than such a man with such a description.
David was anointed to be king at seventeen years old. The problem with this was that there was already a king. A king that just so happened to end up hating, hunting, and persecuting David. It wasn’t until 20 years after God’s promise and anointing that David actually became King. David wasn’t perfect by any means, making mistakes-some even major-along the journey of waiting, but he remained patient and pursing God, “strengthening himself in the Lord” as the Bible puts it, and continuing to believe in the promise and purpose God had for his life.
I failed to mention that when David was first anointed, he was nearly looked over as he was just a shepherd boy that spent time tending to sheep and playing on his harp. I believe that the practice of patience began with the sheep. I believe that in the stillness, in the waiting, in the watching, David was listening for the voice of God. He was beginning his journey as a “man after God’s own heart”. What a picture the Bible paints of David in the field with the sheep, learning to strengthen himself in the Lord and practice patience. However, Jesus paints an even more beautiful, tangible picture himself to His followers as he illustrates a story of a shepherd and his sheep.
John tells us the account of Jesus telling this story in John 10:7-9 “Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” Jesus also calls Himself the “good shepherd” in verse 14 as He says,
“I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own.”
In true transparency, I’m writing about patience today, because I’ve gotten to the point where so much is piling up, that I am tired of waiting. Don’t get me wrong, I remain certain that God hasn’t left us yet and He won’t leave us now with this mess we’ve been in after our world was turned upside down being hit in a head on car collision by a drunk driver last year. But, with the medical bills continuing to pile up and things not coming through to compensate our losses as we’d hoped, while I am still not working to contribute, I might add, I am getting impatient for it all to work together for the good. Now that I’m feeling better physically, I’m itching to pull up my boot straps and get busy on walking through doors to make things happen to fix our problems. However, that isn’t what God wants, nor ultimately what I want either.
I want to be like a sheep, one that patiently waits on what God has for me, and is only led out when He opens the door. I want to be like David, I want to practice patience in waiting and believing for the promise that He has for me, believing that the patience will produce a state in which I am complete and lacking nothing. In this season of life, we will continue to wait. We have opportunities arising and doors opening, but may we not be led astray, rather hear the voice of our shepherd, the good shepherd, and be led out only by Him. As a people that are practicing patience, as we wait for God and let patience have its work in us while we listen for His voice, may we be confident that He also listens for ours. Yet again, we gain encouragement and see just that from David in Pslams 40:1 as he writes,
“I waited patiently for the LORD; And He inclined to me, And heard my cry.”
