Why is there such emphasis on patience?
We all have trials and how we deal with them determines the final results. GOD’S process is slow because HIS interest isn’t in the outcome, it’s in the process. Maturity doesn’t happen overnight. Seeds planted don’t produce fruit all at once. Our society encourages impatience by developing our mindset to focus on how fast versus how complete and how excellent.
James recorded by The Holy Spirit in James chapter 1:
2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials,
In other Words, when it seems as though you are facing nothing but difficulties, see it as an invaluable opportunity to experience the greatest joy that you can!
3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.
4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
As I wrote yesterday, patience will release perfection into every part of your being until there is nothing missing and nothing lacking. How joyful it will be to walk in full maturity in the areas you were formally walking in immaturity! Maturity occurs in the journey.
Could you be patient for forty years? Joshua and Caleb were, and in the end, they received their reward.
It is recorded by The Holy Spirit in Deuteronomy chapter 8:
1 “Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers.
2 And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.
3 So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every Word that proceeds from the Mouth of the LORD.
4 Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. 5 You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the LORD Your God chastens you.
6 “Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the LORD Your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him.
7 For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills;
8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey;
9 a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing; a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper. 10 When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land which He has given you.
FATHER has to chasten us so that we will walk in maturity and be good stewards as we walk in the power and authority of Jesus Christ. HE will not give such power to the immature who would abuse the privilege. Patience is required to achieve such maturity.
Unwavering patience develops complete trust in THE LORD.
King David recorded by The Holy Spirit in Psalm chapter 21:
7 For the king trusts in YAHWEH, and he will never stumble, never fall. The forever-Love of the Most High holds him firm.
As kings and priests, we should walk in the same mindset as David.
We all like the breakthrough when it happens. Will we walk in joy while we are in the midst of the process of maturing? What we are in the journey is what THE FATHER values. It’s the day-by-day decisions to renew the mind to fully trust IN HIM for the outcome. It’s the day-by-day decisions to put the Word of THE LORD in response to what we are confronting. We guard our hearts with HIS Word expressed through declaration, confession, praise, and worship.
It takes nothing for GOD to take Israel out of Egypt and just plant them in The Promised Land, but they don’t have the character to stay there. They will wander out. If they don’t go through a journey to get there, the maturity developed in the journey is what keeps them there.
For you and me, it is the process that enables us to steward the wealth of fulfillment of the process. The delay is to help us to see what is hard to see otherwise.
I don’t need the fruits of THE SPIRIT if I don’t have others in my life. Those who are mature are intended to minister to those who are not. Instead of complaining about the immature, we are to minister life to them. I assure you that it will take patience on our part. If we don’t learn patience, we will live a frustrated life.