Patience
We applaud patience, but prefer it to be a virtue that others possess. N.T. Wright
Gregg’s Reflection
For most of my business career, I was an impatient person. I was driven to prove myself, and I had to keep moving forward. For the last decade, as we grew The business after our father died, we took on $50 million in debt. I felt like I was running down a hill with a snowball behind me getting bigger and bigger. If I slowed down for a minute, I would be run over. What I considered passion, others received as anger.
When we sold the business, I hardly slowed down. I had completed an Executive MBA, while running the largest piece of our business. It was an exercise in workaholism. Upon leaving the business world, I transferred the arena for proving myself to the church. I was intent on sparking a new Reformation in the Lutheran church. Leaving the business world in the prime of life made me feel I had to do something big.
A few days ago, I read an article by Dr. Jordan Grumet entitled The secret to finding happiness and purpose in life, from a hospice doctor: You’ll ‘die with fewer regrets’
Most of our anxiety stems from what I call "big P" Purpose, which is overly focused on the outcome or destination.This goal-oriented type of purpose often depends on an all-or-nothing equation. You either succeed or you don't. You're either the biggest law firm grossing the highest revenues in Illinois or you're not.
The bigger the goal, the easier it is to fail. And these objectives often rely on some mix of luck, timing, and genetics. You have to be the right person, at the right time, in the right place. Unfortunately, for most of us, the stars do not align precisely when necessary.
This goal-oriented type of purpose often depends on an all-or-nothing equation. You either succeed or you don't. The bigger the goal, the easier it is to fail. Unfortunately, for most of us, the stars do not align precisely when necessary.
For better or worse, most of us are bound to fail. Meanwhile, the anxiety that comes with such goals defining our purpose robs us of any enjoyment there might have been in the process.
In fact, I often hear my dying patients complain that they spent too much time on their audacious goals, at the expense of their own happiness.
That happened to me. I’ve learned that patience is one of those ‘be careful what you ask for’ things. Ask for patience and be prepared for a neighbor or coworker who is a real pain. Someone who my father would say, “It would strain a mother to love.” Read on about the value of patience in your life. Blessings.
Journaling Prompts
Is it hard for you to sit still and do nothing? Running so hard you can’t stop to smell the roses? Two of the top five regrets of the dying are: I wish I hadn’t worked so hard, and I wish I’d let myself be happier. How is your impatience keeping you from enjoying life?
Scripture
The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still.
Exodus 14:14
The end of the matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.
Ecclesiastes 7:8
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.
Psalm 37:7
Whoever is patient has great understanding, but one who is quick-tempered displays folly.
Proverbs 14:29
A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.
Proverbs 19:11
But the seed on good soil stands for these with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.
Luke 8:15
But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Romans 8:25
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
Romans 12:12
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
Ephesians 4:2
Love is patient, love is kind, It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
1 Corinthians 13:4
And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone.
1 Thessalonians 5:14
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Galatians 6:9
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
Colossians 3:12
Ancient Quotes
Listen, look, suffer and be still. Release yourself into the light. See with intellect. Learn with discretion. Suffer with joy. Rejoice with longing. Have desire with forbearance. Complain to no one. My child, be patient and release yourself, because no one can dig God out from the ground of your heart.
The Silent Outcry, anonymous 4th Century letter. McGinn, Essentials of Christian Mysticism p. 141
It is a bigger miracle to be patient and refrain from anger than it is to control the demons which fly through the air.
John Cassian
All the Saints have been Martyrs either of the sword or of patience. We can be Martyrs without the sword if we keep patience.
Gregory the Great
My dear son, be patient, because the weaknesses of the body are given to us in this world by God for the salvation of the soul. So they are of great merit when they are borne patiently.
St. Francis of Assisi, The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi
To bear with patience wrongs done to oneself is a mark of perfection, but to bear with patience wrongs done to someone else is a mark of imperfection and even of actual sin.
Thomas Aquinas
To serve God with fear is good; to serve Him out of love is better; but to fear and love Him together is best of all. To have a restful or peaceful life in God is good; to bear a life of pain in patience is better; but to have peace in the midst of pain is the best of all.
Meister Eckhart, Sermons of Meister Eckhart
Set all your trust in God and fear not the language of the world; for the more despite, shame, and reproof that you have in the world, the more is your merit in the sight of God. Patience is necessary unto you, for in that shall you keep your soul.
Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love
You have need of patience; and if you ask, the Lord will give it: but there can be no settled peace till our will is in a measure subdued. When you cannot see your way, be satisfied that He is your leader. When your spirit is overwhelmed within you, He knows your path.
John Newton
There is no love of God without patience, and no patience without lowliness and sweetness of spirit.
John Wesley
Modern Writings
The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.
Carl Jung
I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
T.S. Eliot
People are merely "amusing themselves" by asking for the patience which a famine or a persecution would call for if, in the meantime, the weather and every other inconvenience sets them grumbling. One must learn to walk before one can run. So here.
Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are "patches of Godlight" in the woods of our experience.
C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.
Simone Weil, First and Last Notebooks
Tertullian reduces all sin to a root of impatience with God.
Thomas Merton, A Year with Thomas Merton, p. 185
Hope springs from the continuing experience of God’s compassion and help. Patience is hope in action. It waits for the saving help of God without giving up, giving in, or going away.
Thomas Merton Open Hearts Open Minds p. 164
Give me the strength that waits upon You in silence and peace. Give me humility in which alone is rest, and deliver me from pride which is the heaviest of burdens. Possess my whole heart and soul with the simplicity of love. Occupy my whole life with the one thought and the one desire of love for You alone.
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 45
God is patient and does not give up. God leaves ninety-nine sheep in the fold and goes after the one that is lost until he finds it and brings it back.
Beatrice Bruteau
See how you attempt to bring about change – both in yourself and in others – through the use of punishment and reward, through discipline and control, through sermonizing and guilt, through greed and pride, ambition and vanity, rather than through loving acceptance and patience, painstaking understanding and vigilant awareness.
Anthony de Mello, The Way to Love: Meditations for Life
The secret is to renounce nothing, cling to nothing, enjoy everything and allow it to pass, to flow.
Anthony de Mello, The Way to Love: The Last Meditations of Anthony de Mello
Being patient is difficult. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient, we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later, and somewhere else. Be patient and trust that the treasure you are looking for is hidden in the ground on which you stand.
Henri Nouwen
God will not force His way into our lives; He patiently waits for us to invite Him in.
Dallas Willard
Faith is patience with mystery.
Richard Rohr
The theological virtue of hope is the patient and trustful willingness to live without closure, without resolution, and still be content and even happy because our Satisfaction is now at another level, and our Source is beyond ourselves.
At times we have to step into God’s silence and patiently wait. We have to put out the fleece as Gideon did (Judges 6:37-40), and wait for the descent of the divine dew, or some kind of confirmation from God that we are on the right course. That is a good way to keep our own ego drive out of the way.
Yet there are other times when we need to go ahead and act on our own best intuitions and presume that God is guiding us and will guide us. But even then we must finally wait for the divine backup. Sometimes that is even the greater act of faith and courage, and takes even more patience. What if the divine dew does not fall? What do we do then?
When either waiting or moving forward is done out of a spirit of union and surrender, we can trust that God will make good out of it—even if we are mistaken! It is not about being correct, it is about being connected.
Richard Rohr, Yes, and...: Daily Meditations
We applaud patience, but prefer it to be a virtue that others possess.
N.T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters
The future goal is the thing which produces character in the present.
N.T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters