Patience is a word that most people hate to hear.
We are a world of instant gratification and it is making the fruit of patience much harder to come by. Yet, patience is a vital element of faith. The very definition of faith is that you believe something that you don’t yet have or see. That means that there will have to be a moment of time for the “thing” your faith is expecting to come to pass. It could be as quickly as a second, like when the woman with the issue of blood touched Jesus’ hem, he said that her faith had made her whole in that instant. Most often, however, we see things occurring many years’ later.
Faith for the promises of God always requires the element of time for the promise to come to pass. Here’s the reason why, the scripture tells us in James 1:3-4,
“… you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
Faith at work in your heart is producing something in YOU!! It is for your good. It is maturing you! Growing you! Conforming, you to the image of Christ!
So living in a state of faith is good for you! No wonder the scripture says that the just shall live by faith. It’s impossible to please God without it and it’s good for you! You can’t beat that.
Let’s begin with Noah. He heard a word from God telling him that the world would be destroyed. He spent approximately 100 years building and preparing, in faith, for the single rainstorm that actually took just 40 days and nights. Then he had to wait another year until it was safe to leave the ark. A good majority of his life’s story was spent in faith of his God concerning a single life changing event.
Abraham had a promise from God too. It was that he would have a son and become the father of many nations, even though he and Sarah could not have children. He had to wait 25 years before Isaac was born. Think of how much time he had to possibly give-up on his promise, but he didn’t! The scripture says in Romans 4:19 -21,
“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be’. Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead–since he was about a hundred years old–and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. “
All of that “not wavering” and “being strengthened” and giving “glory to God” and “being fully persuaded” took place over the course of 25 years of standing in faith. All of that was vastly important to whom Abraham was, just as important as the birth of his child, because they made him into a man called God’s friend. The scripture also tells us that his faith was credited to him as righteousness by God. How wonderful was that.
Remember that as you, with your modern promises or expectations of God, are standing and trusting, your faith will not be the only thing being tried. Your patience will be tried also. As you continue to believe and stand firm, you will be allowing a personal benefit far weightier than gold, to be at work in you.
I Peter 1:7 says,
“These [trials] have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith–of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire–may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”