“If we want to live wider and deeper lives, not just faster ones, we have to practice patience.”[1]

In an attempt to define patience, it is important to remember that patient is part of “the fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22) and is at the heart of love (1 Cor. 13:4-8). Patience must display qualities of love or it is not a true expression of patience. Therefore, patience is not stoic resignation: “What will be, will be, so why bother?” Neither is patience apathy or laziness. None of these things demonstrate active love to others.

Two Greek words are translated as patience in the New Testament. The primary word is makrothymia. It is a compound word. Makros means “long” or “far.” Thumos means “strong feeling” or “passion, usually associated with wrath or anger.” Put together, the words signify long-suffering, or slow-to-anger. Patience thus involves waiting through and bearing with suffering without breaking out in anger. It is not an easy virtue. It involves “hard waiting.” Nor is it passive. It takes strong resolve to suffer without complaint.

The secondary word is hypomeno which is translated “to persevere, endure, and be steadfast.” It involves the courage to endure hardship. Like long-suffering, it is not passive – it takes great resolve to endure hardship.

Putting the two words together we can begin to describe patience. Put simply, it is hard waiting (long-suffering) without hard feelings (slow-to-anger: feelings of anger, irritation, bitterness, frustration, etc.). It is a quiet perseverance rooted in godly self-control. It is actively waiting with hopes of a better tomorrow. Patience can only be practiced when the waiting serves a greater purpose. Ultimately, the purpose of patience is to allow us to express godly love to others.

Describing Patience

The best way to speak of patience is to reveal how it colors and shapes our expressions of love.

Patience is suffering love. Patience is learned in and through suffering – both major and minor difficulties. There is no short-cut. There is no other way to truly learn patience. Patience is not simply waiting but “hard waiting.” Therefore, the first step in learning to practice patience is coming to accept discomfort and irritations – from situations and people. We must learn to embrace suffering and sorrow as a means of sanctification – as growing in godly love. Patience can only be grasped when we quit demanding a life of comfort and ease and choose to suffer for the love of another. “Impatience is an addiction to comfort, ease, and our own will… the refusal to endure sorrow.”[2]

Patience accepts that spiritual growth comes slowly through suffering. This completely clashes with our culture’s obsession for speed – an obsession that seeps into our own spiritual expectations. We want spiritual maturity now, without suffering or inconvenience. This is why we fall for novelties, fads, quick fixes, and spiritual “silver bullets.” Our prayer must not be, “Lord, give me patience, but please hurry!”

Patience is self-controlled love. It is this self-control that allows one to be slow to anger. A proper attitude toward suffering and difficulties allows us to refrain from outbursts of anger over every annoyance. “Patience is the ability to keep control over the impulses that rise suddenly when something disagreeable happens.”[3] Patience has a long fuse. It refuses to demand that everything go our way. H. Dale Burke has rightly stated that “patience is love that waits with contentment.”

Patience is sacrificial love. Patience offers others the two most precious gifts we have to give – the gift of our self and our time. Ultimately, patience is a matter of time. It involves a radical shift in our perspective of time. It involves viewing time, not as our own possession, but as a gift to be used to God’s glory and for the good of others. We naturally think of “our time” as our own possession, as if it is ours to control. However, our time is a stewardship from God intended to be used for his glory and our good. “Can we really hope to be patient with people as long as we believe that our time is our own? Can we really hope to be patient with people when all too often our assumption… is that people are unwelcoming intrusions into our preplanned schedules?”[4] Put simply: People are not interruptions of your life, but the very reason for your life! Practicing patience allows you to slow down and actually love others.

Patience is stable enduring love. Time cannot stop it – it is willing to wait! Difficulties cannot thwart it – it is willing to suffer. Patient love persistently waits for another, putting up with them in hope of their future good. Patient love continues to believe that no one is beyond redemption.

To Love as God Loves

Only when our love is rooted in patience can we truly love as God loves, for “God is love” and “Love is patient.” Patience is a commitment to love even if it hurts – and it usually will. It is modeled after Christ’s love. Jesus was willing to personally suffer and sacrifice himself for the sake of his beloved. His love remained steadfast in spite of the discomfort (better: agony) of the cross. In Jesus’ passion, we do not find an angry man on the cross![5]

Patience keeps us from reducing love to mere sentiment. A willingness to suffer for the sake of the beloved is an essential quality of godly love. When we allow the cross to define divine love (cf. 1 John 4:10-11), we discover that to love is to open ourselves up to the possibility of suffering for the sake of another.

Strangely, when God speaks to us of true love He takes us not to a bed of pleasure but to the agony of a hill called “The Skull.” There we witness the ultimate moment of love. It is not in the intensity of pleasure as two naked lovers intertwine in each other's arms, but in the incredible pain as the Eternal Lover hung naked on the tree, stretching out his arms to hug prodigal humanity back to the Heavenly Father.[6]

We need this strong perspective of love. The Bible is realistic about the fact that love is not easy. Loving others can absolutely drain a person of energy – “doing good” can be a wearisome matter (cf. Gal. 6:9). Love is not always “soft as an easy chair” but sometimes more like an electric chair!

We short-circuit spiritual growth by refusing to suffer for others. In a classic quote from The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis demonstrates how one’s unwillingness to suffer leads to a tragic end:

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

The only way we can become fully human as God intends is by our willingness to practice patience with others. By making ourselves vulnerable in love, we open ourselves to suffering. And yet, it is this very process that makes us shine with the glory of divine love. This is illustrated beautifully in the Velveteen Rabbit’s discussion with the Skin Horse:

Velveteen Rabbit: What is REAL? Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stickout handle?

Skin Horse: Real isn't how you are made. It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become real.

Velveteen Rabbit: Does it hurt?

Skin Horse: Sometimes it does. That's part of the deal. When you are Real then things can really touch you. And you notice how much they matter. And when you are real you can say "ouch!" to the things that hurt, and give real hugs to the things you love.

Velveteen Rabbit: Does it happen all at once, like being wound up? Or does it happen bit by bit?

Skin Horse: It doesn't happen all at once. You become Real. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.

The only way to become real is through the practice of patient love. We most fully reflect the divine image when we love as God loves. Next week we will consider how the patience of God provides a perfect pattern for our imitation!

© Richard J. Vincent, 2006