Patience: Part 3 — A ‘Time With God’ Audio Devotion

This week we join John North to focus on the virtue of patience. It’s arguably one of the harder virtues to develop in our lives, but once mastered, benefits our relationship with The Lord and others greatly.

Finishing is better than starting.
    Patience is better than pride.

Ecclesiastes 7:8 (NLT)

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Transcript

Good morning. Every weekday morning at this time we meet together to spend some time with God.

I hope that in your life you have found your relationship with God to be the most important thing in your life.

If you haven’t, then there’s some major lessons you need to learn because God wants you to understand that because of the unique way He has made you, your life needs to be in healthy relationship with Him or things just don’t work right in life. We were made for God.

And so as we take time with God each day, we are letting God know you are first in my life. Time is precious to me, and you are more precious than anything else I might do with this time at the beginning of my day. And so as we read His word, the Bible, God speaks to us, and God guides us. He shows us what are the important things in life, what we need to build our lives around.

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And so today, as we continue our theme this week of patience, let’s go to another great passage talking about patience, and this is here in Galatians chapter 6. Starting in verse 7.

Paul writes, Do not be deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption. But the one who sows to the spirit shall from the spirit reap eternal life. And let us not lose heart in doing good. For in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary.

Let me just read that last verse again.

Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary.

You know it’s easy to get impatient with God, isn’t it, and to grow tired of doing what’s right because we don’t see immediate rewards in our lives. But as we’ve already seen this week, so often the rewards that come with honoring God take patience to obtain.

What is God making you wait about?

Just this week I was talking with a friend, and he was sharing what God is teaching him in his life, and he needs to sell his car. And just when he put it on the market, it looked like it had sold straight away, and he was so excited, said, God is so good, as he shared that with me.

But then that sale fell through, and now it’s been several weeks, and he really desperately needs to sell the car, and he said this week God has really been challenging me and saying, so you thought I was good when I was doing things according to your schedule, but what about now when you can’t see the reason I’m making you wait? Will you still trust me? Will you still think I’m good?

And really for the Christian, isn’t it true that patience and trust go hand in hand – if you trust God and He makes you wait, well then you’ll have patience because you know God is in control.

But if you don’t trust him and he makes you wait, then you’re just going to be uptight and stressed and fretting and anxious about it.

Learn to trust God. He sees far more than you can see, and He knows what He is doing in your life and in your circumstances. Trust Him today.

I’m John North.

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