I heard a story about a truck driver who dropped in at an all-night restaurant in Broken Bow, Nebraska . The waitress had just served him when three bikers—tough guys riding motorcycles—came into the restaurant and rushed up to him, looking for a fight.

One grabbed the hamburger off his plate; another took a handful of his French fries; and the third picked up his coffee and started drinking it.

The trucker did not respond as one might expect. Instead, he calmly rose, picked up his check, walked to the front of the room, put the check and his money on the cash register, and went out the door.

The waitress followed him to put the money in the till and stood watching out the door as the big truck drove away into the night. When she returned, one of the bikers said to her, "Well, he's not much of a man, is he?"

The waitress answered, "I can't say about that, but he's sure not much of a truck driver. He just ran over three motorcycles out in the parking lot."

That truck driver had a kind of patience, but it’s probably not exactly the kind we’re talking about today. Galatians 5:22 says “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Today we come to patience—or as some translations put it, “longsuffering.”

You’ve all heard the saying, “Patience is a virtue.” How outdated is that? We live in an age of fast food, instant messaging, overnight delivery—we want everything, and we want it now!

The very idea of patience gives most of us a headache. Patience is just not a high value in our culture.

Of course, we want God to continue to be patient—with us, preferably. And he is. The trouble is, God is also patient with other people.

According to a traditional Hebrew story, Abraham was sitting outside his tent one evening when he saw an old man, weary from age and journey, coming toward him. Abraham rushed out, greeted him, and then invited him into his tent. There he washed the old man's feet and gave him food and drink.

The old man immediately began eating without saying any prayer or blessing. So Abraham asked him, "Don't you worship God?"

The old traveler replied, "I worship fire only and reverence no other god."

When he heard this, Abraham became angry, grabbed the old man by the shoulders, and threw him out his tent into the cold night air.

When the old man had departed, God called to his friend Abraham and asked where the stranger was. Abraham replied, "I forced him out because he did not worship you."

God answered, "I have suffered him these eighty years although he dishonors me. Could you not endure him one night?"

The moral of the story, of course, is that we ought to learn to be patient with other people, as God is.

Generally when we think about patience, and whether or not we have it, we think of patience with other people. Do you patiently wait when someone is slow and inept, or do you quickly lose your patience?

I think the patience we have with others depends to a great deal on how much patience we have with ourselves, and how much patience we have with life.

Patience with life includes our attitude towards time, because when you think of it, time is life. When your life ends, your time on earth is up. So in the end, the underlying issue is our patience with God. Do we or do we not trust God to do what is right with regard to us?

In his book, Life on the Vine, Philip Kenneson wrote,

“Time is not to be understood as a scarce commodity, the shortage of which hangs over our heads like a cloud and threatens our feverish attempts to make something of ourselves and our lives.

Instead, by the grace of God and with a view to what God has done in the past and desires to do in the future, Christians are freed to view time as a gift and to dwell graciously in the present, knowing that God has liberated us from the necessity of justifying ourselves.

In short, God has created a ‘timeful people’ whose existence offers the world a foretaste of the kingdom. These people have been freed from the tyranny of believing that their ultimate destiny or joy is tied to how they ‘spend’ their time.

This freedom makes possible the appearance of a ‘new’ time: a time for caring for those—like the elderly, children and the mentally handicapped—whose productivity is suspect; a time for being with those—like the poor, the downtrodden and the discouraged—who do not promise to contribute to our status or to guarantee that we will leave feeling upbeat;

and a time for entering into the gratuitous and joyful worship of a God who promises not that things will always work out the way we believe they should, but of a God who promises never to leave us or forsake us.”(Philip D. Kenneson: Life on the Vine: Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit in Christian Community. InterVarsity Press, 1999, p. 126)

When I read that paragraph, I was gripped by what he said, and in particular that “God has liberated us from the necessity of justifying ourselves.” What a fantastic description of grace! To be free from having to justify ourselves! That “God has liberated us from the necessity of justifying ourselves” has theological meaning that ought to impact our lives.

Justification is a theological term that speaks to what God has done for us through Jesus Christ. When we are saved by God’s grace, we are justified.

And if we are justified by God’s grace, do we need to continue to justify ourselves? No! We are already justified. And if being justified by God’s grace is not enough, then how can we ever hope to justify ourselves?

Kenneson goes on to say those who have been justified by God “have been freed from the tyranny of believing that their ultimate destiny or joy is tied to how they ‘spend’ their time.” I don’t know about you, but to me, that is good news indeed. That is the crux of the gospel.

I can’t say strongly enough how counter-cultural this is. Most of us have been deeply impacted by the message of our culture that we must be productive.

We have calendars that plan our lives down to the minute, and most of us have read books advising us how to make the best use of our time. I know I’ve read a bunch of them.

But what, really, are we trying to accomplish? What is our purpose? Where are we going in such a hurry?

It reminds me of a time over twenty years ago when we visited the US Naval Academy in Annapolis , Maryland . Suddenly from all around us, came the students, all dressed in white and all in a great rush, walking as fast as they could towards dinner. We stopped where we were and just watched them.

Our oldest daughter, who was about 6 years old said, “Those guys are just like the white rabbit!” She was referring to the white rabbit in “ Alice in Wonderland.”

And then she quoted the white rabbit, “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date. No time to say ‘hello.’ Goodbye. I’m late, I’m late, I’m late.”

I admit that I am frequently guilty of rushing about looking a lot like the white rabbit myself—trying to cram just one more thing into my day, so that I have to hurry to catch up.

Perhaps God is calling us to be more patient with ourselves; to let loose of our daily planners and learn to just be. At least some of the time.

Being efficient and checking things off your list can be very rewarding. I’m a person who likes to get things done. It makes me feel like I have accomplished something. But there comes a time when it is simply not enough.

You know those little wheels they put in hamster cages so the hamster can get some exercise? He can run as fast as he can inside that wheel, but he will never get anywhere. Sometimes that’s how I feel, even if I am being “productive.”

I start to realize I need to get off that wheel and simply be with God. I need to get my priorities straight—to remember who I am and whose I am—to remember that my hope lies, not in a “to do” list with lots of items checked off, but in God.

If I don’t, I will be susceptible to becoming frustrated or depressed. That’s what happened to the Psalmist. He had lost his zeal for living, and he expressed his need for God in this beautifully written poem, Psalm 42.

As I read it, notice the way the Psalmist goes back and forth between his knowing he needs God and his despair. Isn’t that just like us?

¹ As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.

² My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?

³ My tears have been my food
day and night,
while men say to me all day long,
"Where is your God?"

⁴ These things I remember
as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go with the multitude,
leading the procession to the house of God,
with shouts of joy and thanksgiving
among the festive throng.

⁵ Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and ⁶ my God.
My soul is downcast within me;
therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan ,
the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar .

⁷ Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.

⁸ By day the LORD directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.

⁹ I say to God my Rock,
"Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?"

¹⁰ My bones suffer mortal agony
as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
"Where is your God?"

¹¹ Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.

Do you see how the Psalmist vacillates between knowing that God is his hope and wallowing in his own despair? When we get our eyes off of God and focus on ourselves, that happens to all of us. If your soul is downcast, you might say with the Psalmist to God, "Why have you forgotten me?” But then, he chides himself and says,

“Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.”

I want to say something here about self-care. It is not self-centered to take care of yourself. Long ago I realized that for me, it is a sin to allow myself to get overly tired. I can be very goal-orientated, and that makes me push myself.

Sometimes it makes me work too hard. There’s nothing wrong with working hard, but at least for me, if I overdo it, I can become so tired that I am worthless to anyone. I need to be wise enough to know when this is happening and just slow down.

A lifeguard is required to swim regularly in order to stay strong. Otherwise, when there’s an emergency, he or she will not be able to handle the rescue. In the same way, we need to take care of ourselves if we are going to be any good to anyone.

And for a Christian, that means spending time in God’s presence. In order for us to have patience, we need to be patient with God—and to be patient with life.

Going back to Kenneson—“ Christians are freed to view time as a gift and to dwell graciously in the present, knowing that God has liberated us from the necessity of justifying ourselves.

“In short, God has created a ‘timeful people’ whose existence offers the world a foretaste of the kingdom. These people have been freed from the tyranny of believing that their ultimate destiny or joy is tied to how they ‘spend’ their time.”

God is so patient with us. Our lives are God’s gift of time to us. We don’t have to justify ourselves—or even how we spend our time—because we have already been justified by God’s grace.

And when we finally grasp that, we will have plenty of patience for those around us.

Prayer:

Thank you, Lord, for you enormous patience with us. You are so much more patient with us than we are with ourselves. Your grace is an example of your patience. Help us to accept your grace—salvation so freely given, because of your great love for us. As we accept your grace and your patience with us, may we grow in our patience towards ourselves and others. Amen