Simply put, we are impatient. Come to think about it, such impatience is a manifestation of our own greed and selfishness. In fact, it puts us at risk of being childish – like the little boy who can’t wait until Christmas morning to tear off a corner of the wrapping paper on the present under the tree, like the little girl who starts planning her Halloween costume in July, and like the couple who gives in to the temptation to “go too far” before getting married.
One of the things we can’t control in this world is time. It’s out of our hands, and we can’t stand it.
Our brother, Jeff Smith, makes the following statement: “Great art, great food and great redemption all take time to develop and mature and that requires patience. Patience is old-fashioned, though, and we seem to be competing with a world full of aggressiveness and self-service, where tempers boil over like geysers and change is swift and unforgiving. Without patience, though, we will be lost with the world.” Smith writes, “[I]n a time when medicine, booze and divorce all promise instant relief, longsuffering is a noble, but uncommon virtue.”
Patience comes to us from the Greek word, makrothumia. It is “endurance, constancy, steadfastness, perseverance, forbearance, longsuffering, slowness in avenging wrongs*. Listed as one of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5, patience is a virtue, but a rare one.
The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them (Isaiah 9:2; Matthew 4:16, NASB).