The virtue of patience

Call To Prayer

Title: The virtue of patience

By: Wale Lasisi

Date: 01.08.2024

Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. [4] But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. (James 1:3-4 KJV)

Some years ago, I was faced with making a critical decision that was time bound. There were options opened to me to chose from but none of them was God’s plan. The option I perceived God was leading me towards was not forthcoming as days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months but I waited. There was pressure from every angle to take other alternatives because of time but I exercised patience in the Lord of possibilities. For the first time, the scriptures in James 2:20 that faith without works is dead came alive to me because it was really hard to stick to my convictions about what I had received from God when logic and pressure from loved ones set in. In the end, waiting on God paid off and this opened many other doors.

Patience is a tool of reshaping our character. There are many ungodly possibilities that we possess that we are not even aware of which can be purged out when we wait. Our ambitions and desperations will die while waiting patiently and God will in turn use this experience to infuse humility into us.
Faith requires patience. Job displayed his faith in God through patience in Job 14:14 “….all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come”. Abraham had a promise from God to be father of many nations but that promise did not materialise immediately. One would have thought that because God said it, Isaac should have been conceived the next day but the timings of God are different. In our adventure of faith with God, we must cultivate the virtue of patience to see the manifestation of God’s power and glory.

Finally, patience kills off undue hastiness in the soul. Our walk with God is not a sprint. The testimony of Enoch was that he walked with God and was not for God took him. Even when you are unjustly treated, the Spirit of God will work patience in you to forgive and let go for God to be exalted in your life. The bible pointed us to the patience of Job (Jam.5:11) and how his later end was better than the beginning.

Prayer point:

Let us thank God for His word today. Let us ask the Lord for grace to be patient and wait on Him in all we do.