Patience: Part 4 — 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.

We’re talking this week about patience, and do you know whenever you face an issue in your life, the most important thing is to first of all, go to God about it.

God is at work in your life and wanting to direct and lead your life, and your life comes together as you put God first. So why do we go to Him last when we’re facing issues in our lives and wanting to learn and grow and know which way to go? God should be the first person we go to.

And ask Him to lead us and guide us and give us insights into the situation and the principles that are involved. And when we go to God for guidance and for help, it should always be with our Bible open because that’s how God loves to speak to us through His word, the Bible.

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And so as we look at this theme of patience this week, where do we go? We open our Bibles, and this is so important as you spend time with God each day.

Learn to do it with your Bible open. It’s great if you’re able to actually get on your knees in front of a chair or in front of your bed in a quiet place and put your Bible open in front of you, just kind of signifying with your body position even that God is above you. He is first in your life. You want to honor Him.

God loves to speak to the listening heart.

Well, talking about patience and trusting God, I want to go to an encounter Jesus had with several people about following Him as His disciples. It says in Luke chapter 9, starting in verse 57.

And as they were going along the road, someone said to Jesus, I will follow you wherever you go. Here was a volunteer.

Jesus said to him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man, that’s me, Jesus, has nowhere to lay His head. He was saying to that man, you’d better count the cost before you volunteer. It’s going to be tough. I don’t have a home, and you may not have one either. And he said to another, Follow me.

What an incredible thing to be invited by Jesus to be in His inner circle, to be discipled by Him, trained by Him.

But that man said, Permit me first to go and bury my father.

Now if you do a cultural study on this passage, it’s obvious this man’s dad hasn’t died yet, probably isn’t even sick. This man’s saying, when my parents die, then I’ll come and follow you, Jesus, and Jesus said to him.

Allow the dead to bury their own dead. As for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.

Another also said, I will follow you, Lord, but first permit me to say goodbye to those at home.

And Jesus’ answer shows that there was more to this man’s reservation than simply saying goodbye. This man is wondering whether he is really ready to commit to Jesus. Jesus said to him, No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

One of the temptations that comes to us when God asks us to wait, asks us to have patience, puts us in circumstances that we wish would go away or that we wish would change, one of the temptations is simply to quit.

To say I’m not going to trust you, Lord. I can’t see where this is going and so I’m going to take things into my own hands again. I’m going to be the ruler of my life, not you.

Well, when we do that, we don’t produce a good outcome. It always is a negative outcome. Trusting God is always the pathway to blessing. If you’re facing a circumstance in your life where you don’t understand why God’s doing what He’s doing.

Be patient. Trust him. The blessing is around the corner.

I’m John North.

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