How to Navigate Impatience as a Christian

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Listen to this message:

“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
    and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
    more than watchmen for the morning,
    more than watchmen for the morning.”

Psalm 130:5-6

In the day and age that we live, patience is one of the most scarce of all virtues. Even in my own life, it is something I continually struggle to improve. I’ve seen some growth compared to, say, when I was in college, because many of the things I used to care about or that motivated me no longer affect me. This has definitely helped, and certainly being born again with a new heart and new desires gives us the ability to detach from the world’s countless addictions and temptations. Nevertheless, until Christ returns and we receive our new bodies and a new creation, it will be a constant struggle. I am far from perfect at implementing any of the things I’ll share with you today, but what matters is that we make them part of our life’s practice and review them often.

Perhaps if impatience were to be distilled down to its fundamental problem, it is an issue of trust in some way. Think about it. When we become impatient with something, it is often because we have an expectation in our mind and that expectation doesn’t pan out like we want it to. The next thing that happens is that our doubting mind kicks in and we begin to get anxious, afraid that the outcome will not happen in time or maybe will not even happen at all. We might lose a little hope, and so the next step for most people is usually anger or sadness, depending on the type of person you are and the level of problem you’re dealing with.