In An Increasingly Impatient World, How Do You Find the Patience to Wait? Here's How

Growing up, this time of year used to drive me nuts.  Christmas seemed to come soooo slow. That date, December 25^th seemed to hang out there, way further down the calendar than I wanted.  Of course, I didn’t want it to come so we could celebrate the baby Jesus a little earlier.  No, I wanted the Santa loot.  I wanted the swag under the tree.   I wanted the presents, thank you very much.     

Now I tried to speed up the process.   I tried the Hanukkah argument.  Those Jewish folks got a bunch of days to open their presents.  So, I’d ask.  Couldn’t we do the same thing?    We could do it in stages. So, we could begin the present opening in Advent, kind of like a Christmas Hanukkah, a Christakah?   I’m sure Santa wouldn’t mind.   But that argument, can you believe it, did not work.  I couldn’t convince my parents, much less Santa.  

I did get my parents to agree that we could open one family gift on Christmas Eve.  But that just made it worst.   Once I got that little taste of the Christmas loot, I wanted it all.    

Then one year, I discovered a loophole or at least I thought I had discovered it.  I woke up Christmas morning, super early, who knows maybe 5 AM or even 4.   I went to check the tree, And, what a joyous sight I saw.  Santa had delivered!  Christmas had come! 

Now granted no one else knew, but I did.   There the presents lay, just waiting to be opened.  I tried to wake the family.   But Mom and Dad were not excited at all.  They even seemed irritated.  Dad even yelled for me to get back to bed right now!

But how could I do that!  Santa had come.  Those presents yearned to be opened. I could feel it. And I was ready and waiting to open them.  And well, it was Christmas Day.   So, I began to rip away.   I did hear a little voice inside saying, “Ken, is this really a good idea?”  But I told myself.  “It’s Christmas, and the presents are here.  This is perfectly legit.”    But when my parents woke up, they didn’t see my reasoning at all.  My dad even yelled at me.  He said, “Ken, you’re 25 years old.  You should know better.”    And looking back, I admit, he might have been right.         

I sat around while everybody else opened up their gifts.   And as they did, I regretted my solo act.   It paled in comparison to what was happening around me.  I had had no one with whom I could share the joy.   I realized.  I had missed something, something wonderful that I would not get back, at least not that Christmas, all because I couldn’t wait.

Now, ironically, Christmas still drives me nuts.  But this time, it drives me nuts because it seems to come too fast.   Christmas already?  I’ve still got so much to do! 

And whatever you feel about Christmas, whether it comes too fast or too slow, do you ever get frustrated at the timing of things.  Do you find it hard to wait?    If anything, people find it harder to wait more now than ever.  Forget waiting for Christmas.  We get frustrated if a webpage takes more than a few seconds to load.   And Amazon first did two-day delivery.  Now it’s one-day.  And soon, it will be one hour.  Why?   People just can’t wait.

 

But is that good?   Sometimes in life, you need to wait, don’t you?  If a baby comes too early, that early arrival risks that child’s very life.   And in life, have you ever not waited and wished you had, like I did that Christmas?  Have you spoken rash words you wish you could take back?  Have you made rushed decisions that you now regret?  Or maybe you wonder if you gave up too soon?  If only you had waited.  

Waiting carries more wisdom than we might like to admit.  But still you can resist it.  So how do you wait?  How do you do it with patience, even when you’re so tempted to lose it.  In this season of waiting Christians call Advent, God shows you the way.  Let’s listen and hear what God has to say.

James 5:7-11

How do you wait when waiting feels so hard?  In these words, God tells you.   The reason folks struggle to wait has very little to do with the timetable.  But it has everything to do with the perspective.  What needs to change isn’t the timetable.  What needs to change is your perspective.

Just take a look at these folks to whom James is writing.  They were expecting Jesus to return but Jesus wasn’t.   And that was becoming a big problem.  Things were getting scary.  Persecutions were heating up.   Life was getting harder than ever.  And they were asking.  Where is Jesus?  When is he coming?  When is he going to deliver us? 

And in James words, how does God answer those questions.  God tells them “It’s not your time-table.”     Now you want it to be your timetable.  But that’s your problem.   It’s why God talks about farmers.  After all farmers know that their farms don’t operate on their timetable.  The sprouts don’t pop out of the ground on their schedule.   The rains don’t come when they expect them.  They get it.  They realize.  We’re not the ones in control here.  They can only do their part, and then wait for God to do the rest.   And if a farmer doesn’t do that, well, that farmer’s not going to have much of a crop.

And that essential truth, the truth of perspective is what God is reminding you of in this passage.  When you and I get impatient, it’s because we’ve forgotten a crucial truth.  We’ve forgotten what time we’re living in. 

For my part, I like to think I live in KST.   Do you know what KST is?  It’s Kennedy Standard Time.   That’s the time when everything is supposed to happen when I want it to.   So, if I want to get 20 miles in 15 minutes to be on time for a meeting, then I will.   If I want to get an hour long task done in 30 minutes, then it will get done.   

But KST means more than just things happening when I want them to.  No in KST, the people around me will do what I want when I want them to too.   If I want someone to see something my way, then they will instantly.   If I expect someone to change their attitude or behavior, then boom, it will get done.  But here’s the problem.  KST doesn’t exist.  Heck, it doesn’t even exist for me.  I can’t even get on Kennedy Standard Time, much less the rest of the world.  You likely have your own version of KST, geared to your timing, your expectations. 

And yes, even though you know it’s not real, you still can live with the expectation it is.  And when you do, and then things don’t go the way you want, you’ve got a problem.  You get frustrated with God, with yourself, with others. You start that grumbling against one another that James talks about.  You start judging them.  Why can’t they get it together?  Don’t they know what time it is?  

But the problem isn’t with God or with the folks around you or even with yourself.  The problem lies with your perspective.   You’re placing expectations on God and others and even at times on yourself that have no basis in reality.  You’re living in a world that doesn’t exist.   And thank God, it doesn’t.  Because, to be honest, if the world ran according to Kennedy Standard Time, it would be a pretty sorry place.   And I don’t doubt it would be the same with your standard time either. 

After all, what happens when you get worried or anxious about something? Why are you getting worried?   It’s because you think you know.   You know how things need to go.  You know what needs to happen.  But here’s the shocking truth.  You don’t.   You don’t know.   But James is saying God does know.  And thank God, literally for that.  Sure, you may not know God’s timing, but that doesn’t mean, God’s timing doesn’t exist.   

Years ago, a member of my family struggled with addiction.  In fact, she struggled for years.  And I was talking with Warren, an old friend who had many years in recovery.  He asked me how she was doing.  I told him.  She’s still drinking.  I thought he would say something like, “I can’t believe that.  Doesn’t she see what she’s doing to herself?”  Then, we’d commiserate on what a disaster she was.   But he didn’t say that at all.  He simply said.  “Well, she’s not ready.  When she’s ready, she’ll go.”   Do you get what Warren was telling me?

Warren was saying, “Kennedy, stop grumbling against this person you love.  Love her, pray for her, do what you can to encourage her, but then let it go.  Let her and God work it out. I know that you want her to be ready, but she’s not.  And that readiness, that’s not your call.  Ir never was, and it never will be”

And I got it.   Because, if you’re dealing with someone with an addiction, and you start believing that their readiness to get sober is your call, then guess what.  They’re not the only one with a problem. You’ve got one too.  You’re addicted to trying to control what you can’t.  And that addiction creates its own path of destruction.  In fact, it might even work in a perverse way to stop the person you love from getting the very help they need. 

 

That’s the irony.  When you live in your version of Kennedy Standard Time, not only do the things or people you want to change not change, your impatience can even prevent that change from happening.

Yet still you can find yourself doing it?  Have you ever found yourself angry at God because you expected your life to work by a timetable that doesn’t even exist?  Have you ever become frustrated because you tried to change someone, and they didn’t cooperate?  Have you ever beaten yourself up not because of who you were but because of unrealistic expectations of who you wanted yourself to be?   Have you ever lost perspective like that?  Are there places in your life right now where those things are happening right now? 

How do your free yourself from that desire to control?  How do you wake up from the false timetables that can lead you to try to control what you cannot?    How do you learn to wait? 

Well, learning to wait will carry you only so far. On your own, you can’t produce the patience you need.  Now, you can fake it.  You can act patient when inside you are seething.   You can behave as if you are letting it all go, even when you know you are so not.   In fact, lots of religious folks do that.  But everyone can still see, they’re faking it.   So, if you can’t produce the patience, how does it come?  How do you become patient? 

You realize on your own, you can’t.  At least you can’t anymore than a farmer can grow a plant.  

But what you can’t grow, Jesus can grow within you.  And that happens the more you see how Jesus has been so incredibly patient with you.   In love, God reached out again and again over thousands of years through a small nation called Israel, and still folks didn’t get it.  Even, a lot of times even the Israelites didn’t get it.  Even when God sent prophets, they didn’t listen. But God didn’t stop reaching out in love.    And in ways, that folks could hardly see, God was patiently, powerfully working.  And then in Jesus, God showed up like never before.  And again, so many didn’t see it.  Yet God stayed patient.  In Jesus, God even stayed patient even as he was brutally dying on that cross.   And in that awful event, God’s patient love was even then changing everything.  And thousands of years later that love still hasn’t stopped changing everything.  Even all along that way, even when so many Christians didn’t fully get it, when they went on violent crusades, and did awful persecutions, God’s patient love didn’t give up.   And God keeps loving like that, patiently, unrelentingly, and in that love, God is changing everything still. 

And as you realize how God loves you like that, it frees you to patiently love too.  It frees you to let go of your concerns about others, knowing God is patiently loving them too.    And as Jesus’ love for you patiently grows within, you will start letting go of the false timetables, the unrealistic expectations of others, your own perfectionistic desires.  You will find yourself worrying less and trusting more.  And then, like a seed bursting from the soil, you will discover your patience blossoming in ways you could not have imagined.   You will see Jesus working as you patiently love others, as you invite and welcome them into the love of this God who loves each of us no matter what.   And you will see that love working in you in way that will stun and even humble you.  Yet even as God’s powerful loves moves within you, even as God’s loving purpose gets accomplished through you, patient you will remain, grateful for the One who is infinitely patient with you, who patiently loves you even on your worst days, this Jesus who loves you no matter what.