But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Romans 8:25

“Just give me a minute, I’ll be right there!” How often do we say this to our kids, spouses, coworkers…anyone who needs something from us? Probably daily. And we probably hear it daily. We are always asking or being asked to wait.

What we’re really asking for is patience.

These are small requests, just 60 seconds. Not a huge requirement. In fact, we probably don’t even think twice about it. The time goes by and what we need is accomplished.

But sometimes we need more patience than just 60 seconds worth of time.

I spent almost 3 weeks without a kitchen sink while we waited for our countertops to be installed. It took a lot of patience to persevere through a lack of water for dishes and cleaning. Carrying water back and forth from the bathroom got tiresome fast.

But I knew there was an end date. I knew in a short time I would have my kitchen back, and it would be better than before. It was more than 60 seconds of patience but I knew it wasn’t going to be forever and my patience would pay off.

The difficult thing about patience is that sometimes God asks you to wait, without giving an end date. There’s no mark on the calendar to tell you when you’ll have an answer or when something will happen. God asks us to be patient and trust his timing.

In these cases, it feels like we are waiting for patience. We even pray for it! Seems ironic, to spend time waiting for patience. But patience is a mindset, it is a practiced virtue. We get impatient when something doesn’t happen promptly (or what we assume is a timely manner).

God works on his time though, which is not the same as our time. Waiting for God can be hard but it is worth it. Just like waiting for my kitchen was worth it. So we need to ask God to give us the mindset of patience. We need to be ready to wait for patience. It can take time to come to terms with the fact that we have to wait!

Just as we wait for a fruit to ripen. If you eat a kiwi or banana or avocado before it’s ready it doesn’t taste anywhere near as good as when it’s ripe. Just as patience is a fruit of the spirit! When we let things ripen they taste so much sweeter.

The waiting pays off. Once we establish patience we can persevere through anything. God gives us that ability and then in his time gives us his answers.

So the next time you encounter a period of waiting, pray for patience. It will come and it will help you endure the frustration of the situation. Things turn out so much better if we let them ripen in God’s time rather than our own!