As we have addressed, patience is crucial to inheriting the promises and being in God’s will. Consequently, I have tried to turn “waiting” into special opportunities to “enter His gates with thanksgiving” (see Psalm 100:4) and get closer to Him. We are told “in everything give thanks” (see I Thessalonians 5:18),so I have especially tried to use unexpected delays to thank Him for the delays, so I can learn more patience. It works!
Since thanksgiving is how we enter His gates and presence, and since we are told in Psalm 16:11, in His presence is fullness of joy, if we are thankful for the delays, this can lead to unfathomable joy in His presence. In this increasingly dark and fearful world, the joy of God’s people is a great and desperately needed light. In Isaiah 40:31 we are given another remarkable benefit for learning patience:
Those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.
This “new strength” we gain by learning to wait on the Lord is His strength that comes from abiding in Him. With His strength, we can run and not get tired, and walk and not get weary. We can even soar like eagles and see the world from a much higher place. In fact, we “can do all things through Christ who strengthens” us (see Philippians 4:13).
As we have discussed the last two weeks, our impatience can cost us far more than we realize. However, patience can also profit us far more than we realize.
As a pilot and flight instructor, I was in the business of time. People fly planes because they want to get somewhere fast. Still, if they do not take the necessary time for preflight inspections and preparations, they may not arrive at all. As a professional pilot who taught other pilots for years, I saw pilots who would gradually become more careless (care-less) in their preflight inspections, and some paid the ultimate price. Sometimes saving a few minutes can cost us everything.
I am sure few have considered that obeying speed limits can add years to their lives, and not just by avoiding accidents. I wear a device that measures my vital statistics. So, I decided to monitor my stress levels traveling ten miles over the speed limit, versus five miles over the speed limit, versus going the speed limit. I monitored this many times over many trips. To my amazement, my stress level traveling ten miles over the speed limit was between 30 and 50 percent higher than traveling the speed limit.
Having more stress is just one of those things that can shorten your life by weakening your heart and immune systems. Depending on how much we drive, this added stress can not only significantly shorten our lives, but also cause us to be much more tired and less productive. To add this much stress to our lives to save a few minutes here and there can cost us more than we realize.
Living faster does not equate to living a better or more productive life and can have an enormous impact on our longevity. Likewise, as we have addressed in Hebrews 6:12, it takes faith and patience to inherit the promises. Our inheritance in Christ can be affected by this. This verse implies that if we have faith without patience, we could miss our inheritance. Patience is a profound demonstration of faith. True faith is not in an outcome, but in God. How can we have true faith in Him but not trust in His timing?
Again, impatience is not a fruit of the Spirit, and if we let impatience lead us, we are not being led by the Spirit. Being misled in this way can cost us far more than any amount of hurrying has ever saved us. Realizing this, Carl Jung, one of the greatest minds in psychiatry and greatest thinkers of his time, said, “Hurry is not of the devil; hurry is the devil.”
The devil is the biggest thief, and one of his successful tactics to steal from us is to feed our impatience. We are also told in Romans 16:20, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” How can we abide in the God of peace and still be driven by impatience? Perhaps this is one of those “gates of hell” through which the devil has access to our lives. How much more fruitful and enjoyable could our lives be if we abided in the God of peace, demonstrated by our patience?
© 2022 Rick Joyner. All Rights Reserved.
