The Problem with Patience
Author: Katie Krueger
August 22, 2024
For years, my mother wondered why the strawberry plants in her garden would not bear fruit. This remained a mystery until one day, when she caught her daughter red-handed, plucking the “pretty white flowers” from the strawberry bushes. No amount of explaining could convince 6-year-old Katie that if she wanted strawberries, she had to leave the flowers alone.
Of course, my need for patience extended far beyond the strawberry patch and into the deep corners of daily life. I was short-tempered with my friends, easily frustrated by my family, and constantly wishing for blessings that had not yet come to pass. In recent months, God has given me many things to be patient about, but in his grace, he has also given me endurance and a new perspective on patience.
Not a Passive Virtue
When I was a teenager, I wrote a character sketch about a girl named Patience. She was supposed to embody everything that patience could be, an animated model of the virtue. There was one problem with Patience: she never did anything. She languished on a sofa waiting for her life to unfold and sometimes scolded her younger sister for being too hasty. The things that made her a terrible character were the same things that hindered my ability to be patient.
I thought that patience was simply disinterested waiting, or a kind of conversational passivity. If I needed to wait patiently because I was excited for a friend’s birthday party, it was best to completely forget about it. If I got caught in a conversation with an irritating classmate, the right thing to do was to get out of it with as little incident as possible. In the years since, I have learned that neither of these perspectives are biblical.
The problem with patience is that we underestimate it. Patience is difficult, and difficult things require practice, diligence, and focus. In Colossians 1:9-11, Paul begins his letter to the church with a list of ways he is praying for them. When we get to verse 11, he prays that they might “[be] strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.” Paul does not expect that patience will come easily to the church in Colossae. Rather, they will need God’s grace to sustain their effort. He prays that they will be empowered to be patient.
Internal vs. External Patience
Jane Austen’s novel Emma tells the story of a proud girl who discovers and amends her shortcomings with the help of her friend Mr. Knightly. Throughout the book, Emma is perpetually irritated by her neighbor Miss Bates. While she appears to be attentively listening to Miss Bates, her internal dialogue reveals scorn and boredom. After an incident when Emma accidentally reveals her internal disdain for Miss Bates, Mr. Knightley confronts her, which leads Emma to repent and change her attitude. Emma starts to really take an interest in her conversations with Miss Bates and becomes a better, more patient person.
Sometimes it is simpler to act patiently than to actually be patient. The former requires only an external veneer of kindness, while the latter requires internal transformation. Granted, both choices require diligence to put into practice, but action alone is insufficient. If we are to seek God’s approval, the change must be in our character.
Thankfully, we are not left to obtain patience in our own strength. God has given us the Holy Spirit to shape us toward becoming more like Christ, including growing in patience, as listed with the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
If you stopped by our garden today, you would find that the small pot in which we unsuccessfully tried to grow strawberries has been replaced by a raised garden bed, overflowing with herbs and tomatoes and squashes.
Patience, by definition, takes effort and intentionality. But where it flourishes, it yields an abundance of blessing.
Katie Krueger is the office manager of New Covenant Church.
Photo by Anton Darius on Unsplash.
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