Patience is an art? Who would’ve thought that patience is an art that needs to be mastered? The only thing I know about patience is that I do not like it but I have always heard that it is a virtue. Virtue means to display morally good behavior. So it is commendable to be patient but I have never met one person who absolutely loves to be patient. I know people who are very good at being patient and his contented being that way but it was not because they love to be patient, life has taught and conditioned them to be that way. So the question is how do we master the art of patience? To understand the process of mastering patience, we must first define it.

To define art in basic terms it’s the way we see things, expressed thoughts and ideas. It can be experienced visually or auditorily. Many people think that waiting is passive and unaccompanied by action or movement. The visual expression of patience is to be still to wait to rest to take a break and just be still. The purest expression of the art of patience is waiting but how do we wait? Do we wait anxiously, worried or fearful of what the results of our waiting will be? No! There is plenty to do while we wait we can look at Noah building the ark he continued building even though he had not seen one drop of rain. He had the promise of rain but he had to wait for the rain. He couldn’t sit with his hands between his legs because he had a great gigantic Ark to build.

Sometimes we think that we are waiting on God but God is waiting on us to get it together. He is waiting on us to build that thing. God held back the rain until Noah finished building the ark. God is waiting on us while we are waiting on him. Patience is a beautiful synergy between God and man. The perfect work of patience is that the will of God is done through us in the earth. Patience is necessary for both the earthly Kingdom and the heavenly kingdom to work together to establish the purposes of God.

Abraham kept doing the commands of God and kept his covenant with God as he was waiting on the promise of his son. Abraham kept worshiping God while he was waiting on the promise. Waiting is not passive we should worship while we wait. Worship creates space for the promise to mature. Sometimes it’s difficult to worship hen we are waiting on God because all we can see is the situation and we wonder why is God not doing anything about it? Is in these times that we should continue to watch and pray because that is when we will be tempted the most.

Jesus went about doing good all while waiting for the appointed time when he would be lifted up and He would be revealed as the Christ. He was not passive as he waited for the fullness of time. He served, he waited on his disciples, he healed the sick and raised the dead while he was waiting to be offered as a living sacrifice. Oh what a beautiful Savior is He. The disciples in the upper room understood the art of patience they were waiting on a beautiful gift that couldn’t come before 50 days. They were also waiting on a promise but they were praying and preparing for the promise as they wait. They prayed and prepared and waited for the Holy Spirit and a beautiful work of art was appeared as the fire fell upon their heads! Oh what a sight that must have been! Patience is truly a beautiful work in of art.

Patience involves unwavering trust, you cannot truly be patient unless you are completely trusting. You can sit still with your hands folded and appear to be trusting but not really letting go on the inside. When you see the immature fruit on trees you do not run up and pick it immediately, you trust that if it continue to remain on the branch it will mature and be ripen. So too we must trust that those situations in our lives are like fruits that must be matured. We must strengthen our resolve to wait on God to work out the things that are beyond our control.

The art of patience is to master your will and emotion, it’s mastering self-control. Our flesh wants instant gratification, everything is expressed and microwaved these days because we do not like to wait but we must mortify the deeds of the flesh. (Romans 8:13). The flesh should not be allowed to rule our spirit, the flesh is impatient and it wants nothing to do with waiting. That is why there is such a war in your soul when it comes to being patient, your spirit is willing to wait but your flesh is impatient so there is a constant fight just to be patient. You can win the patience war by consistently choosing to wait, practice waiting even when you do not need to wait. Ask God to give you the grace to be patient.

Patience is a virtue because it gives you the power to govern yourself as long as you can control your desires impatience will not dominate your life. The flesh will eventually get used to the spirit being in charge and you will get to a place in your mind where the patience war is won and your spirit man takes the lead but until then give your self time and space to grow and mature.

The art of patience is to see the value in waiting, it’s to see the value in the process. Patients nurture and matures. The art of patience is to see the unfolding of the new thing, it’s not just to see a thing as it but as it will be and to nurture it. Just think of a fruit maturing from a bud to a tiny green fruit, then to growing larger and become ripened, we cannot pick the fruit before it’s fully formed and ready for picking. We would abort the process and damage its ability to be fully developed. It does takes time but patience produce a perfect work of art when that fruit is fully formed. Now that’s real art; a beautiful well formed ripe and delicious fruit.

The art of patience is to take on a process you do not fully understand and allow God to work on it to produce the best results. If you are not willing to wait you will never see the perfect work of patience. Let patience have its perfect work in you and you will not be disappointed. (But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. James 1:4). Many times we are disappointed in life because we are not willing to wait. Just like the picture on this post the fruits are being developed, they are not yet mature, they need more time to develop, they need more time to grow and patience gives them the time that they need to be mature. How disappointed it would if you pick those baby fruits and began to eat only to discover they do not taste like what you expected. It’s the same thing with people and processes in our lives.

The fruits of the Spirit grows in stages in our lives. Sometimes we are expecting to see full ripe mature fruits but most of the time our fruits looks like the ones in this post. It’s green and bitter to the taste but if it is left alone to grow and develop it will change into a beautiful delicious fruit. Most times as human beings we are in these in between stages where we are not so sweet to the taste but God is patiently working through us to develop, mature and ripen the fruits on the inside of us. The beautiful thing is, He knows us and loves us in all of our immature under developed stages. Oh what a wonderful beautiful amazing God we serve. I feel so undeserving of such goodness and mercy. I don’t deserve it, do you?

And this is why we must always give each other room grow. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32). Give them enough room to grow until the fruit ripens and falls off the tree. Being patient is definitely an art worth mastering.