In His Image: Patience – Part 1

Last week, I wrote briefly about Ephesians 5:1 and Paul’s call for us as believers to follow after, or imitate, God as beloved children. The final note there was that we need to be certain we’re following after God in His communicable attributes. Last summer the women’s ministry at Parkside offered a book study on Jen Wilkin’s book In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character, and it was my privilege to deliver a short talk covering one of those attributes. It’s rather long for a single post, so over this week and the following two as well, I thought I’d share the majority of the manuscript I prepared for that occasion. It has been minorly edited for clarity in reading, but the major points are the same.

If you had asked me 10 years ago whether God is patient, I likely would have said something along the lines of “He’s perfect, right? So I guess probably so.” Ask me now, and my answer would be very different. So the question may then be, what changed in that time? Why am I so much more aware and confident of the patience of God? I’ll give you two reasons: their names are Grace and Erin, and they are currently 6 and 4. Some of you are probably chuckling to yourselves right now, but I am convinced that there is nothing like small children, especially toddlers and preschoolers, to highlight one’s own impatience and underscore God’s patience. Think of how we tend to respond in the face of continued disobedience, particularly when it’s the same infraction over and over again. And then recall how God responds, perhaps as recorded for us in the book of Judges, when His people commit the same sins repeatedly. But maybe it’s not children in your life that try your patience most. I think we probably have all had an aggravating coworker or annoying family member who even as an adult has a tendency to push our buttons, just to see how we’ll respond. In many ways, we are like that with God. We engage in the same fruitless or destructive behaviors again and again, despite His gentle reminders that there is a better way. 

Jen Wilkin starts by highlighting the ties between impatience and anger, and then reminds us from 2 Peter 3 and I Corinthians 13 that God’s perfect patience is an expression of His love, and implies expectancy, that He is waiting for a resolution. We are reminded to slow down, for patience is the path of wisdom and impatience gives rise to a quick-burning unrighteous anger, with several verses from the book of Proverbs laid out as evidence for us. Patience is costly, but bears fruit in due time. We need to have right and good expectations, both of others and also of the amount of time necessary for us to be made holy. We are advised to look to Christ for an example of perfect patience with sinners, in circumstances, in suffering. We see that He is slow to anger even as He is right to be angry, and there is much to emulate in that. In short, we are called to remember Christ and turn our eyes toward the long view, to keep perspective.

One of my favorite places in which we see God’s patience clearly and specifically articulated is Exodus 34:6-7, when He is speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai. In these verses, the Lord declares that He is a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty. The assertions contained in these verses are particularly significant, in my opinion, because this is how God chooses to represent Himself. Directly from the Lord’s mouth, in His own words, this is what He most wants to be known about Himself. This is what He proclaims about His own character, and one of these descriptions is slow to anger. This is a phrase frequently used for God’s patience, and if it is a root characteristic of a patience that I am called to emulate, I am in big trouble. It would take far less than a single day at my house for you to witness an example of how NOT slow to anger I truly am.

So there you have it. Apologies for the abrupt break; it wasn’t originally intended to be split at all. Stay tuned for next week’s portion, in which I address just whose work growth in patience truly is, and share about the practical difference made in my own life by studying patience. EDIT: Part two can be found here, and part three here.