There is a sign hanging over a secretary’s desk which says ”Oh, God help me to be patient, and please hurry.” We live in such a helter skelter world that we want to even hurry patience.

The writer to the Hebrews tells us that ”ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.”

Patience is surely a virtue that has to be learned. We are not born patient. The little one wants what he wants When he wants it and lets the whole world know his impatience by a loud and lusty bellow. Little children need to be taught to be patient. In God’s eyes we are all little children and is it any wonder that ”we have need of patience?”

How do we acquire patience? First of all, God helps us by sending us tribulations for we are told by Paul that ”tribulation worketh patience.” So God in his wisdom allows trouble to come our way for the express reason of teaching us patience. Again we can see this in the life of a little child. If the child gets everything it wants exactly when it wants it then it has no patience at all and soon becomes miserable when going out into the cruel world where mommie and daddy are not there to supply every request. Parents are wise to teach their children patience by sometimes making them wait and no doubt from the viewpoint of the child this waiting is a form of tribulation.

God too, is teaching us to be patient by making us wait. Again Paul gives us the advice we need when he says, ”The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.”

How patient are we? Do we equate patience with do-nothingness? Is the patient man the one who just sits in his chair and rocks occasionally? This is not God’s idea of patience. Jesus commended those who had ”an honest and good heart, who heard the word, kept it and brought forth fruit with patience." That’s the idea. To bring forth fruit with patience. James picks up this theme and likens us to the farmer who ”waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the earIy and the Iatter rain. Be ye also pattent; stabIish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” Yes, the farmer must be patient. He cannot hurry the harvest, but,he has to plant the seed or there will be no harvest. We must do our part. God will surely do His.

Patience involves doing. Patience means planting and watering and waiting. God will give the increase. Are we patiently continuing in well doing as Paul taught us to do? Are we ”taking the prophets who have,spoken in the name of the Lord as an example of suffering affliction and of patience?” James says we should learn from their example and then he singles out Job in particular. ”Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.”

We are to be patient but we are also to be busy. With the advent of the new pocket electronic calculators, the art of adding is fast becoming lost but there is one kind of adding we cannot do on a calculator and that is to ”add to our faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness love.” Patience is right in the middle of that addition so let’s be sure that when we add, we include patience or we will be out of balance. Remember that ”whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” Let us then learn from the patience of those who have gone before ”seemg we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.”