patience

Does Your Patience Has A Short Wick

It seems that patience is one of God’s greatest gifts to man. But we often put it on the back burner.

For example, we talked about Job’s faith more times than we can remember but seldom mentioned his patience, which was instrumental in his struggle. If Job had not exercised patience, he would not have endured his struggles without complaining. Faith is one thing, but it takes great patience to be long-suffering.

What is patience?

According to dictionary.com: Patience is the quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.

Therefore, Job not only believed in God’s promises, but he trusted in his faithfulness and relied on God’s character and loyalty to act. But he also had patience and a whole lot of it.

I think Job needed three things to work in tandem, like a three-legged stool-faith, patience, and endurance. Faith alone would not work. Because the people who encouraged him to curse God and die had faith. But they were short on patience.

The Bible says, “And the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends: also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before,” (Job 42:10).

The Gift of Patience

It seems that patience is one of God’s greatest gifts to man. But we often put it on the back burner.

For example, we often talked about Job’s faith but seldom mentioned his patience, which was instrumental in his struggle. If Job had not had long wick patience, he would not have endured without complaining. 

So what is patience? According to dictionary.com: Patience is the quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.

Therefore, Job not only believed in God’s promises, but he trusted in his faithfulness and relied on God’s character and loyalty to act. But he also had patience and a whole lot of it.

I think Job needed three things to work in tandem, like a three-legged stool during his struggle-faith, patience, and endurance. Faith alone would not work. Because the people who encouraged him to curse God and die had faith. But they could not stand to see him suffer for so long. So their patience had a short wick like many of us.

The Bible says, “And the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends: also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before,” (Job 42:10).

Do you Interrogate God When Things Go Wrong?

Regardless of what anybody says; the holier than thou and the not so religious, we (Christians) question God more often than we are willing to admit. Unlike non-Christians, many of whom doubt the existence of God, especially after a natural disaster, or some other senseless tragedies that captivate the heart of the country; Christians tend to question God if we think He did not answer our prayers soon enough. But God doesn’t work in our time. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says: God made everything beautiful in His time.

Believe that prayer works

Consequently, when you pray, you must believe. “For you walk by faith, and not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7).
Yet, lack of faith seems the principal reason why we think God hasn’t answered our prayers. Often time the breakthrough that we seek is within our grasp, but we need faith to claim it.

Prayer can move a mountain

The woman with the issue of blood had a mountain size problem, but she also had extraordinary faith, which she exercises to achieve her desired outcome. She was one hundred percent sure if she touched the hem of Jesus’ garment, she would be made whole.
Another person who exercised extraordinary faith was the Centurion. One of his best servants was dying, so he requested Jesus to come and heal the servant. But while Jesus was on His way, the Centurion had a change of heart. He did not think he was worthy to have Jesus come under his roof. So, he sent friends to intercept Jesus with this message:

“Lord do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. Hence, I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed” (Mark 7:6-7). Jesus later commented, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”
Throughout His ministry, Jesus emphasized faith. In fact–in one of His discourses with His disciples, He said the following, “Whatever your heart desire, pray, and when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them” (Mark 11:24).