Why does waiting feel so unbearable, and is there a way to get through it?
WATCH
Fruit of the Root, 4 of 8 from June 29, 2026
“Jesus takes all the time He needs to grow all the life He plans.”
Galatians 5 & James 5 by Michael Lockstampfor (@miklocks)
SUMMARY
The sermon teaches that patience is a fruit of the Spirit that grows as we surrender control to Jesus, trust His timing, and see ourselves as part of God's bigger story rather than the center of our own. Using the image of a farmer waiting for harvest, it calls believers to be unoffendable, endure hardship, and wait with others in community, confident that God is working even when results are not immediate.
REFLECTION & DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
💬 How long are we willing to wait for God to work?
💬 Who in our life is most likely to be a victim of our impatience?
💬 What is our impatience revealing about what Jesus wants to grow in us?
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Well, good morning, church. We've been in the series this summer that we've called Fruit of the Root. And as summertime goes, I don't know if you've noticed, but people have other things that they tend to do during the summer. They're here a couple weeks and they gotta run. And so we're moving through.
We were working through verse by verse, the book of Galatians through a couple of different series. And as we knew the summer was approaching, we thought, what's a way that we could continue to talking about the book of Galatians, but in a way that if you miss a week or two, that you don't feel like you've missed the whole thing? And so we came to this passage in Galatians, chapter five, which contrasts the works of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit. The idea is this, that when we are just kind of living for ourself and operating out of our own natural tendencies and default, like settings like for my own self, there's a thing that happens. It's called the works of the flesh.
The things that I kind of naturally do. And as the scripture describes what the works of the flesh are, apart from the intervention of God, everything that we kind of do and drive ourselves for is actually like anti relational. We destroy relationships. We end up using people in order to get things instead of using things in order to be a blessing to people, which is the opposite of how God designed us to live. So there's a whole list there In Galatians, Chapter 5 of the Works of the flesh.
But then contrast to that is this other list called the fruit of the spirit. So the works of the flesh happen when I'm operating out of my own default settings. The fruit of the spirit grows in me. When I've surrendered my operations to Jesus. I said, jesus, I trust you to lead me and guide me and I want to follow you.
And so Jesus says, okay, I got you. Let me take the controls. And then the things that he grows in us are things like this. It says the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. It says, against these things there is no law.
Have you ever like, been somewhere where like it was against the law to be at peace with people?
No, I don't think you have like mandatory fighting. Like maybe if you were like part of Fight Club or something like that. But even like in boxing, boxing rings, there's a camaraderie where the fighters, like, they know each other, they have respect for each other, they're not most of the time really just trying to kill each other. Like, even when we have, like, designated zones of conflict, it's not against the law to be at peace with your opponent. Right?
Right. I don't do sportsball very much, but I know you're not. Like, if you're an Ohio State fan, you're not legally obligated to hate Michigan. Right. All right, what else we got?
Who does Florida State not get along with? Uf? Like, if you're a UF fan, you are not legally obligated to punch every Georgia Bulldogs fan in the nose. You might feel like that sometimes, but it's not, like, legally mandated that, like, you have to be at war with people. Right.
So when we talk about love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, like, those are things that are not against the law. We may not be very good at them, but they're not illegal. And the crazy thing is that Jesus says that when you surrender your heart to me, when you let me kind of design and operate how you are living, I'm going to grow those things in you, even if you're not naturally a peaceful person. When we surrender our lives to Jesus, he begins to grow peace in us. Even if we're naturally kind of grumpy and spiteful and we hold a grudge.
When we surrender our lives to Jesus, he starts to grow love in us. It's like the ending of the Grinch. Like, my heart is growing.
So today, friends, I've kept you in suspense long enough. We're going to talk about patience.
And I've debated all week how long I should let this pause go on.
Let us begin with a test of your patience. Let's not. I would like to begin with our prayer. It's our habit as neighborhood church to pray the disciples prayer. There's no magic spell or anything like that.
But Jesus said, this is how you ought to pray. And it makes sense. If we're going to get together as people who want to follow Jesus, we just pray the way he says to pray. Words are on the screen, if you're not familiar with this translation. But more important than, like, saying the right words, Jesus is asking us to consider the things that we say and to pray with our heart.
So I'm just going to give you a minute to kind of reset. If you need to take a deep breath.
You made it here. Whatever happened in the car on the way here, that's over.
If you need to re. Just say good morning to God, then I give you a second to do that. And then I'll invite you to pray with me.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Amen.
I'd invite you to navigate with me to James, the book of James in chapter five. If you want to follow along in the blue Bibles here, there's a couple of these that are kind of tucked around the chairs and things like that. These are large print Bibles, so it might be easy to read. There's some modern translation. And so if you don't have a Bible at home that you like reading and you like this one, as we're here together this morning, just write your name in the front of that one, take it home.
Let that be our gift to you. But we're going to be in James chapter five, which is on page 1164 in the blue Bibles, if you want to follow along with me there. 1164 in the blue Bibles. James 5.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace and patience. We grow in love as we walk in God's spirit. And God grows our joy as we focus on his glory and his work. And Jesus makes peace between our God and our neighbors. Let's read James chapter five.
We'll begin in verse seven.
Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged.
Behold, the judge is standing at the door as an example of suffering and patience. Brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remain steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job and you have seen the purpose of the Lord. How the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
The Lord blesses the reading of his Word. There's a joke. I don't know if you've been around youth group or been around church very often, but sometimes we do this thing where we, like, ask for prayer requests, like, hey, how can I pray for you? And every now and then there will be somebody, usually a younger Christian or somebody who's like, lord, guys, I just need you to pray for patience. Will you pray for patience for me and everybody who's, like, been in prayer circles for a while just kind of like, oh, I'm so sorry that you asked that.
Because the thing that Jesus will sometimes do when you ask for patience is he will put you in situations that absolutely require patience. And you know how you grow in patience?
You practice it, right? It's just a thing you got to get into. So I remember I was telling this story I think I told decarlos this week. We were buying shoes at Ross because we've got six kids and as many discounts as we can get on shoe wear, we're going to take them. So we were at Ross, and I think I had three of them.
I don't remember. I didn't have all the kids with me, but we had gone and we found some shoes, and we're in the checkout line, and so they got to snake your way all the way through all the candy that's stuck and all the water bottles that you don't need, but they look really cool. And so we're standing there and we're like, no, no, we don't need that. We don't need that. And the cash register lady who was running the cash register must have known the customer who was in front of me because they were talking and I was not paying any attention at all.
But she says next and looks up and she says, oh, my, look, here I am complaining about my one kid, and you've got three. Three And I. She had been talking to the lady before. I didn't overhear any of the conversation, but that's the first thing she says to me. And there's very few moments in my life where, like, I look back on them and go, oh, like, that was just God speaking.
And this was one where I did not think any of these thoughts, but these words came out of my mouth. She said, here I am complaining about my one kid and you've got three. And I said, I don't have three. I have six. And she says, what?
She says, I don't. I could never do that. She said, I could never do that. I don't have enough patience for one. And I said, that's the point.
She said, what? What do you mean, that's the point? I said, I didn't have patience for six when I only had 1 2. Like, Lord didn't provide patients for six kids until after I had six kids. And even then, he's working on it.
Like, I'm not. Not completed yet. I said, you would have patience if you had six kids. And she said, I never thought about it that way. And then we checked out and bought our.
And bought our shoes and all that kind of stuff. But she, I could. I don't have patience for my one. Like, yeah, because you only. You only have the patience for the situation that you face and the things that you need.
The Lord, when we pray, as we have this morning, give us this day our daily bread. He's going to give us what we need for the day. And if your day doesn't include six children, then he's probably not going to give you six children's worth of patience. You're welcome.
But if, in fact, you find yourself babysitting or something like that, the Lord may provide for you an extra helping of patience in a situation that absolutely requires patience. I love what the Scriptures do here. Let's look back at verse seven. Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. How long are we on the hook for?
Until we're out of here. Like, this is just a part of living life. Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth. Being patient about it until it receives the early and the late rains.
You also be patient. So the scripture says, hey, you should be patient and be patient like a farmer. Now, farming is not something that we do super regularly. Most of us, if we have any kind of gardening experience, we invest, like, our 401ks into this tomato plant that's going to give us half of a tomato maybe once. Like, we spend all of this money and all of this energy trying to garden a tomato plant, and then we get a tomato off of it.
And you're like, well, I guess I'm going to have to go buy a salad to put my tomato on. But if we were farmers, like, our whole livelihood would depend on whether or not these crops came in. There's like a high pressure that they get this right. You don't eat if the crops don't grow. Your family doesn't eat if the crops don't grow.
You don't have anything to trade to keep warm through the winter if the crops don't grow. The stakes for the crops growing are high. And yet you cannot make the crops grow. You know that from your tomato plant. You can get the right soil, you can get a watering schedule, you can read all of the books, you can watch the Instagram girls that have all the perfect tomato plants, and there's nothing you can do to make your tomato Plant produce more tomatoes.
You can try, but the best you can do is to set up an environment in which the tomato plant decides that it's going to grow tomatoes.
God's funny. He uses things that we know to teach us things we don't know. And he's designed our life to only work when we work with Him. If you could do life by yourself, you absolutely would. But God has made it so that you cannot live your life apart from him.
He's made it so that whether you mean to or not, you're going to depend on him for something. And even if we are seven steps away in the food distribution chain from the farmer, if the farmer doesn't have a harvest down the line, we won't have food. And it's interesting that creation models our relationship with God. Look at the farmer. Look.
He's going to work his butt. He's going to work his butt off every day of the year. He's going to be out early. He's going to be making sure his machines work. He's going to be making sure that there's no deer that are running up his fields.
He's going to be making sure, like, I don't know, all the things that the farmers do, but they work all the time. In fact, if you know a farmer, the thing that you have to know about them is you're not going to see them until the crops in, and then they're going to go to sleep. They work every single day at something that they can't actually make happen. It's necessary for them to wait. Now, we are real smart.
We're fancy. We got these irrigation systems. We can do anything anywhere. Now, you know, people did not live in Florida until we invented air conditioning. We can live anywhere, anywhere and do anything.
So we think because we've got these irrigation systems, we don't need God anymore. And yet still, like, our irrigation systems can fail. And still we know that rain is better for crops than irrigation. Creation models our relationship with God. He's designed us to need him.
And he actually designed creation to work together with us. You realize that when he was putting things in order, he did every. He's very efficient. He did the whole. Created the whole world in six days.
And then what he did for us is he kept the clock running for an extra day and said, I don't need this day, but I'm just going to leave it going so that when you guys get to working, you remember that you're not God and that you've got an extra day. To not be working because I've done all the work, right.
He's built Sabbath in to remind us that we have to wait on him. And so we have to wait on God. I think there's times where we are functionally atheists, whatever you say. If I say, do you believe in God? Most of us would say yes.
Like, most of us who come to church or let ourselves be dragged into church, we'd say some version of like, yeah, I believe in a God of some kind. Right. But functionally, we get into life and we begin to act like God's not doing anything for me and I got to do it all. And our godliness grows when we live with God in mind. But living with God in mind means that we expect that God is doing something.
And sometimes when God is doing something, what he's asking us to do is wait.
I got to get the seed out. Yes, you do. Get the seed into the ground. That's important. If the early rains come, or if the early rains don't come, then they won't get set in, right?
They won't germinate, they won't grow that first. Okay, well, then the early rains came. Okay, good. But if the latter rains come at the wrong time, then everything's going to get washed out. I'm going to get mildew.
I'm not going to be able to get my crop in. Ok, well, worry about that when you get there. For right now, wait.
Growth doesn't happen overnight.
And I would say too, neither does sickness. There's times where when things go wrong, we get to a place where we're just fed up and we say, God, you never do anything for me. I'm praying that you would fix this and you won't fix it. And I think God would come to us and say, how long have you been letting these habits go that have brought us to this situation where now you're at your breaking point. If it took us 20 years to get here, it might take a little bit of a time for us to correct our course.
And what I need you to do is I need you to wait.
And the only way I know how to wait is to assume that God is working.
God is the one who's in control. God is the one who has a plan. And Jesus takes all the time he needs to grow all the life he has planned.
Do you ever feel like you don't have enough time?
People ask, like, how's it going? I'm like, it's probably fine. People ask, well, is there anything that you need probably another 12 hours in the day.
But if God is the one who's in control, and if God knows you and God has already given you everything that you need for life and godliness, then you have enough time to live the life that God intends for you.
Sometimes I get impatient because I'm trying to live a life other than what God has for me. I'm trying to be more efficient than God is expecting me to be. I'm trying to squeeze more results out of my minimal effort than he expects.
You have all the time you need to live the life that God intends for you. But I think it begs the question, how long are we willing to wait for God to work?
He can change things in an instant.
But if he is gone and he knows literally everything that there is to know and every possible future, and he says, I'm working things out for your good, then he knows that if he were to fix it, something would be less helpful for you and your growth than if he takes the time to walk you through it.
So how long are we willing to wait for God to work?
Because Jesus takes all the time he needs to grow all the life he plans.
Verse 8. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing at the door.
Establish.
Establish your hearts. There's something that happens when we're put in situations where we need to wait or we need to show patience, where maybe it's just me. I'll say it for me, because you guys are probably better at this than me. But sometimes when I have to wait, like, I just. My heart starts to feel fuzzy and anxious, like, I gotta go do something.
I gotta change something. I gotta go fix something. What can I do? What can I do? What can I do?
I can't sit still. I cannot. I gotta fix something.
But he says, be patient. Establish your hearts. Establish. Stabilize your hearts. Settle your hearts.
For the Lord is. The coming of the Lord is at hand. How long do I have to be patient? Until the Lord comes back. Well, how am I supposed to be patient for that long?
He's on his way. He's coming. The coming of the Lord is at hand. We have a hope which is moving towards us. It's not just us sitting around waiting for I don't know when.
It's. I'm sitting around waiting for I don't know when. But I know. I know. I know he's coming.
How do I know he's coming because he came before. He came when he said he was coming. If you go back and read the Scriptures and look at all the prophecies that he lined up, you know he showed up exactly when he meant to show up. You can go back and read the book of Daniel and the prophecies of how Daniel saw things that were going to happen 400 years later, and you can count the weeks to where Jesus is walking down the mountain to Jerusalem in order to be crucified the exact week that Daniel said it was going to happen. He came exactly when he meant to come.
And so if he says that I'm coming back, he says, I'm on my way, then maybe I can just wait a little bit more. You know when it's hardest to wait, right before it's time. I've already waited this whole time. How much longer do I have to go? Maybe just a little bit more.
But establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. He is returning. And so we have to be eternally minded instead of being circumstantially shaken.
We've got to set our minds knowing that God is at work in lives other than my own, that God's work is important in me, necessary in me. I need him personally every single day, more than you know. And yet, while he works in me, he is also working in the whole planet, and he holds the whole world in his hands. I heard a song about that one time.
So what is. Like, what does patience mean then? The coming of the Lord is a hand. Then he says, do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing at the door.
He says, when you're sitting in the waiting room and you're waiting and you're looking around, you're like, how long have I been here? How long have they been here? Did I get here before them? And suddenly the other people who are in the waiting room with you become the enemy. Like, I was here before them.
I should go back before them, right? Sitting in the er. Everybody's got an emergency, but we can only see one person at a time. We got to die. Like, how do we figure out.
And you can be sitting in the er, mad at every other person in the er when not a single person, one of them, has the ability to move you in front of the line, except to make your emergency worse, right? Like, I wish I could go in before them. Well, if they hit you in the nose and you're bleeding out your nose, you can go Back first. But that's not actually what I want. I just want to.
I just want to go back. Right?
But our stability rests in God's activity.
If we trust that God's working and we stabilize our hearts knowing that he's at hand, then our stable hearts then are gracious to the other people in the waiting room. But the temptation is. The natural default is to grumble and to complain and to be frustrated.
Patience is gentleness in the face of other people's failures or slights. Patience is slowness to take offense, especially a slowness to take revenge.
Michael, I hear what you're saying, but you're asking a lot. Yes, and I'm telling you, it does not come naturally to anybody. However, the way that we know that God is gone is that he tells us over and over and over again, I am patient. Isn't that what we read in Exodus 34 this morning? It's crazy.
Moses is getting a second pair of tablets, like a second set of stones, right? Because he broke the first ones. So, like, it's interesting. He's like, lord, that thing you gave me that you, like, wrote with your own finger, like, I broke it. Can you give me another one?
And God, who is the almighty smiter, right? Like, he can smite anybody he wants to for any reason. You broke my law. Like, literally broke the law.
And Moses, hey, get another copy of that. And God's like, yeah, actually, you can. And while I am giving you this second demonstration revealing my character to you, let me remind you who I am. I am the Lord. Yahweh, the God who is.
I got to turn back to it. I don't have it in front of me, but I'm going to turn back to it because I don't want to get it wrong. What was it? Exodus 34, Bible drill.
I know I could say it, but I don't want to mess it up.
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, yahweh, Yahweh. I am who I am. A God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty. He's saying, don't forget that I'm the God of patience, that I am merciful and long suffering. It is one thing to make a vow of being patient while you are giving them the first copy of the law, because he did that, too.
He makes the same declaration. I am the God who is merciful and gracious. I'm slow to anger. And he hands him the law, right? And then Moses comes back and he's like, can I get another one of those?
And he says, I am the Lord, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.
It means more the second time, right? That's why it's a bigger celebration to have a 40th anniversary than it is to have a wedding. Because it's one thing to proclaim, I will love you until the end of time when you haven't had much time together. It's another thing to say, I love you, and I have loved you every day for the last 40 years.
And God is saying, I am the one who is slow to anger. I am long suffering. And if we are going to be like God, we are going to have to grow unoffendable.
I know that we are drawn to conflict that, like all of the Internet, is just trying to generate some kind of unease and unsettlement in us. And we are like flies to the light in my kitchen.
And yet, those who are walking with God, the fruit that the Spirit wants to grow, and those who are surrendering life to him, is patience, long suffering. I'm not offended that you're not with the program yet. I'm willing to wait and walk with you through it.
You also be patient, establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing at the door. You don't answer to anybody in the waiting room.
It's God who calls us back, and it's God who assesses our health, and he takes all the time he needs to grow, all the life he plans. So I just wonder. Think about your life just quickly. Maybe I shouldn't say quickly. So let's be patient about this.
Who in our life is most likely to be a victim of our impatience?
Who do we have the shortest temper with?
Because some of us work in hospitality of some variety or another, and we can be patient with customers all day long, and as soon as we get home, we're ready to just cut people's heads off. It's over, we're done. Who in our life is most likely to be a victim of our impatience?
After the list of the fruit of the Spirit In Galatians, chapter 6, there's a verse there that I'll revisit one more time before we're done here this morning, but it says, let us not grow weary of doing good. For in due season we will reap if we do not give up. But our stability rests in God's activity, not my own. And Jesus takes all the time he needs to grow all the life he plans.
Verse 10 as an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remain steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate, merciful.
So he says, I want you to look at the things like, as you're waiting in the waiting room, don't just look at the people in the waiting room as competition and grumble against them and want to attack them. He says, actually, this is actually like, build relationships with them and sit with them. And he says, if you don't, he doesn't address the people that are in the room that Pastor James is writing. But he says, think back on who the prophets were. These were people who were sent with a message from God.
They didn't write the message. They didn't get to say what it said. They were just sent with a message. And they show up and they tell people, you guys want to know what God says? And they say, yeah, we want to know what God says.
And then they tell the people what God says. And the people say, that's not what God says. I don't want to do that. And the prophets are like, you asked me what he said. I'm just telling you what he said.
And they're like, well, make him say something different. Like, that's not how this works. I came as a messenger. I don't get to change the message. I'm just telling you what it is.
So, well, we're going to beat you up. Okay? That doesn't change what I came to do. And so there's consistent testimony in Scripture where prophets came with the word of the Lord. And people said, we don't want to hear that.
And people said, that's what the word is. And then they got beat up for it and even executed. You could be doing the right thing and get a bad result.
And yet look at those guys. How did they wait through that circumstance? Did they cave under pressure and say, you know what? It'd just be easier if I say that God, you know, if I just soften this a little bit, I could just pull this part out, and then the rest of it's fine. Like I said, most of what he said said, Patience not only is about Being unoffendable.
But it's about persevering under hardship.
Because following Jesus isn't easy.
If it was easy, I think more people would do it. But he himself says the way that leads to hell is wide and there's a ton of people that are on it. And the way to follow in me is just a narrow path and there's few people that are walking through that door.
It's difficult to be a disciple. It's difficult to resist temptation. It's challenging to seek to be stable like Jesus. It can be overwhelming to try to reflect the heart of a God who loves unconditionally to those who really just want to punch you in the face or take what you have.
But I wonder, or I notice too, that we wait better when we wait with others.
Do you remember Covid? You heard of that? What was hard about COVID in the hospitals is that you had to wait alone.
We were talking yesterday about Jessie got a bike accident and had, like, all the skin ripped off her shoulder. And I went to the ER and I could drop her off at the er, but I couldn't go in with her. She just had to wait alone.
But I can wait better a knowing that the one I'm waiting for is on the way. Right. And I can wait better when I've got somebody who's in it with me.
What examples has God provided in the scriptures of people that have faced hardship? What are you facing that God doesn't have? Some kind of an example of somebody who did something sinful, similar. Not one for one. I'm not saying.
Well, they didn't have this exact modern problem. Yeah, sure. But there were all kinds of problems that all kinds of people got recorded in the Bible. There's some people that I'm sure are really sorry that their story is in the scriptures.
But there's something as we look at patience in the eye and say, God, you want me to be patient? What it pushes against us, I think, is my need to be the middle of my story. I need to be the main character of my story. I need God to fit into my story, and he's asking me to be patient. Doesn't he know who I am?
Doesn't he know what I've been through? Yeah, he does. And he loves you a lot. He loves you so much. He loves you so much to let you know that you're not God, that you're not gonna be, and that he's gonna grow you into what you ought to be if you'll just let him.
What Difficulties that we face that he hasn't provided an example for in the Scripture? I think there are many of them. But what difficulties do we face that He Himself has not taken upon Himself? Like, be patient. Like with people that don't listen to you when you're trying to teach them something?
Doesn't Jesus do that all the time? Turn the other cheek when people who you love are purposefully being cruel and lying about you? Isn't that what Jesus did?
Perhaps God's design for life is that we gently learn that we should see ourselves as part of his story and not just our own.
He takes all the time he needs to grow all the life he has planned.
The book of Galatians is going to end with an exhortation to bear one another's burdens.
We wait better when we wait with others. You ever been with somebody who's, like, really struggling with their patience? It can be difficult, it can be unsettling, and yet we wait better when we wait with others. Sometimes you're the person that needs somebody to sit with you, and sometimes you need to be the person who's sitting with somebody who can't wait. And sometimes the waiting is just the waiting.
You don't have to say anything to make it better. Sometimes there's nothing you can say. But we wait better when we wait with others, which means we need to trust ourselves to community. Jesus isn't just working in my life. He's working in our lives together.
But I wonder, as we think about it, what's our impatience revealing about what Jesus wants to grow in us?
It can be easy to kind of listen to a message like this and be like, all right, I'm gonna work really hard to be patient this week. And like, that's the exact opposite of what I want you to do. I don't want you to take this and walk away with a checklist of things that you. You have to do this week or you have to focus on this week. Unless your checklist includes, bring your impatience to Jesus and let him reshape you.
Because the fruit of the Spirit isn't something that you like force to grow. In fact, you can't force any fruit to grow, but it is one that grows in us as we surrender to His Spirit and we trust him to lead and guide and direct us. Let's pray.
Lord, I thank you that you are patient, that you are kind, Lord, you're just. And that you hold the guilty accountable, but you're also merciful and compassionate and you give opportunities for repentance.
So Lord, I pray. I just admit to you there's times where I'm pretty frustrated that you make me wait for stuff.
And Lord, I pray that you would teach my heart that you are God and I'm not. Lord, I pray that you would grow patience in me? As scary as that prayer can be to ask for. Pray that you would grow patience in me that I would wait on you with the confidence knowing that you are working And Lord, that I could be patient with my neighbors, my kids, my friends, my co workers.
We come to you, the Lord of the harvest. Pray that you'd send the rains at the right time and give us what we need for today.
It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
LINKS
Music by Blue Dot Sessions
