Applying Patience

You also, be patient. 

Establish your hearts, 

for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 

(Jas 5:8)

By Stephen W. Hiemstra

In the parables examined, we begin to see the importance of God’s patience.

In the Parable of the Two Builders, we find patience associated with good planning and expert workmanship. The expert builder plans for the flood that, though unexpected, is expected over the long haul. Laying a foundation on a rock speaks directly to the current concern about global warming because greater turbulence in weather is at the heart of the concern.

In the Parable of the Sower, we see that the occupation of the farmer requires patience. Farming requires patient planning and a willingness to invest time and effort in a crop that is from the outset hidden. What impatient person would save the seed from the previous harvest, prepare the soil, weed around the plants, and wait for months for a new harvest?

In the Parable of the Talents, we learn to take risks to advance the Kingdom of God while we wait patiently for the Lord’s return. Attitude matters. A fearful person is not likely to take risks for an uncertain outcome and the rate of return is substantially diminished just because of their fear. God’s abundant generosity allays our fear and permits us to prosper in good times and bad.

In the Parable of the Ten Virgins, we again see the need to plan patiently for every contingency. The urgency of our patient planning is shown to be the key to entrance into the wedding feast, a metaphor for heaven. Anyone who has helped prepare a wedding can attest to the eagerness and foolishness of emotionally-charged young people. Even in periods of utter spontaneity, we are cautioned to plan ahead.

Patience in the Early Church

Lessons about patience played an important role in the history of the church. Alan Kreider (2016, 1-2) observes:

“Patience was not a virtue dear to most Greco-Roman people and it has been of little interest to scholars of early Christianity. But it was centrally important to early Christians…The sources rarely indicate that the early Christians grew in number because they won arguments instead they grew because their habitual behavior (rooted in patience) was distinctive and intriguing. Their habitus…enabled them to address intractable problems that ordinary people faced in ways that offered hope.”

Think about it. The upper class of Roman society was known, not for patience, but for drunken orgies. In such a society, people offering sober, patient assistance to those victimized by such leaders would stand out and garner admiration. Kreider (2016, 19) writes:

“When people seek to follow Christ, according to Origen. God forms them into people who embody this patience. Christ’s followers are not in a hurry; they listen carefully the the word is read and preached, and they patiently call to account straying Christians who attend worship services irregularly. Patient believers trust God. When they are subjected to peritential discipline, they patiently bear the judgments made about them, where they have been rightly or wrongly deposed.’”

The nature of Christian worship is to engender patience and habits that improve daily life.

While worship can impart good habits, Donald Dayton (2005, 122-123) observed that periods of revival of the faith are often followed by reversals as “children growing up under such restraints experience them primarily as factors aliening them from their peers and society.” In seminary I noticed a stark difference in the attitude of preachers kids from missionary kids in which the preachers kids exhibited the response noted by Dayton while the missionary kids more clearly witnessed the fruit of their parent’s sacrifices and developed a strong faith of their own.

Current Backsliding

If modeling God’s patience is of immediate personal benefit, as demonstrated in research associated with the Marshmallow Test, and long term benefit to the church, as argued in Kreider’s study of the early church, why is our society so negligent in teaching personal discipline to our own children? This backsliding on patience can be attributed to the influence of cell phones, advertising to promote mindless purchasing, and the coronavirus pandemic on children’s own behavior. Or it may be simply a byproduct of inattention and parental prioritizing of other goals. One way or another, the impatience that we routinely observe today is clearly detrimental to the spiritual life and to the prudence use of resources in daily living. And our children’s test scores show it.

Example of Saint Augustine

Rather than end this reflection on a sour note, let me turn back the clock to another period when impatience seemed rampant.

Saint Augustine lived in the fourth century in North Africa and was the model of crass Roman debauchery by his own admission as a young man. Augustine (Foley 2006, 10) pictures himself as an initially lazy student who received frequent beatings, but we are quickly introduced to a pious Monica, his mother, who seeing her son engaging in self-destructive and sinful behavior resorted to unceasing prayer. Augustine writes:

“The mother of my flesh was in heavy anxiety, since with a heart chaste in Your faith she was ever in deep travail for my eternal salvation, and would have proceeded without delay to have me consecrated and wash clean by the Sacrament of salvation.” (Foley 2006, 12)

Still, it is paradoxical to observe one of the great philosophers of the church saying: “I disliked learning and hated to be forced to it.”(Foley 2006, 13). Although Augustine was schooled in rhetoric, like todays attorneys, he was by his own admission not converted with arguments, but by the patient prayers of a devout mother, Monica.

Reference

Dayton, Donald W. 2005. Discovering An Evangelical Heritage (Orig. Pub. 1976). Peabody: Hendrickson.

Foley, Michael P. [editor] 2006. Augustine Confessions (Orig Pub 397 AD). 2nd Edition. Translated by F. J. Sheed (1942). Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.

Kreider, Alan. 2016. The Patient Ferment of the Early Church. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.

Applying Patience
Also see:
The Face of God in the Parables
The Who Question
Preface to a Life in Tension
Other ways to engage online:



Author site: http://www.StephenWHiemstra.net
Publisher site: http://www.T2Pneuma.com




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