Patient of Patience

JAMES 1:2-4 

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”

pa·tience : the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset…..

Patience by definition, is the act of being content while waiting for something you do not yet possess. 

It’s understanding that what you have or what you lack does not define who you are and what you are in the process of receiving. Patience, as James says, does a pruning or a perfecting work in our hearts. It gives Holy Spirit permission to prune, refine us, and ultimately remove the desire in us to obtain what we think we need in our strength and power. When we allow Holy Spirit to chip away at us with the chisel of patience we are alleviated from the burden of what we want, but do not yet have. And we come into the revelation that in Jesus we are perfect, complete, and lacking in nothing. A powerful revelation. But wait a minute…

How can you lack nothing if you are waiting on something? It seems like a paradox too large to understand. 

Let me confuse you even more. In Jesus, we already have when we ask. When we ask in His name it is His commitment to give, it’s His desire to provide for everything we need. So when we ask Him we already have it in Him, but we are also in the process of learning to receive (John 14:13). Jesus is really a better giver than we could ever imagine, He doesn’t give us things we don’t know how to receive. So instead of giving on our terms, the Holy Spirit put us into a process where patience is necessary.  It’s in this process where we allow patient pruning work to prepare us to receive whatever we have asked for. Patience teaches us we can’t save or provide for ourselves. Patience teaches us we don’t tell God what He should be doing. We tell Him what we need and respond to what He is doing in our lives. Patience breaks our desire for control, and positions us to lean into and trust our loving Father. It purifies us from the delusion that we are our own gods. It is in being patient that we become content in the process. Knowing that it’s already the delight of the Father to give us what we’ve asked for, His timing is always perfect and right for us and we don’t know best for ourselves. When we allow patience to do its work, we experience the delight of being perfected in Christ. We realize that although there are many trials and pressing needs in this world, our life is complete in Him. It’s a nurturing process. It’s the care of this God process, where we take on the sound mind of Christ and let go of worldly impulsiveness. 

There are certain things in my life that I have been praying for more than a decade. As I am maturing in Jesus, I become aware that the Father has already decided to give me what I’ve asked for. Because of this revelation, I have found that it’s not necessarily that I need to ask more fervently and it’s certainly not that I need to do more to obtain what I don’t have. No, I’ve learned that I must submit to the refining work of Holy Spirit by allowing Him to develop patience in me. So in the waiting to receive, I pray things like, “Lord, thank you that you’ve already decided to give me everything that I need and in You I am complete and lack nothing. Please show me whatever is in me that needs to die so that you can do Your work in my life. In your grace show me what I need to let go of so I can be better positioned to receive what you have already decided to give me. Help me to be pruned by patience as I grow closer to you.”

Love, 

Pastor John