Patience is a virtue extolled for its many good fruits. We often say that “Patience moves mountains!” This is because patience has the ability to achieve many things. A leader also sets out to achieve many amazing things. This is why a leader who works with patience realizes his goals. So, what is patience? Patience is the good-natured tolerance of delay or incompetence. To be patient is to be steadfast in spite of opposition, difficulty or adversity. A patient person bears pains and trials without complaint. And indeed patience brings victory with it!
Three Lessons on Patience
1. Patience is the personal trait that will cause you to bear fruit. To be productive you need to be patient for things to grow until the day of harvest. Fruit-bearing does not follow in the heels of sowing. A farmer needs patience to wait for the season when his plants will bear fruit. Patience is a very important trait for productivity and prosperity. Because of lack of patience people jump out of good things, thinking they can get to the top faster.
But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and BRING FORTH FRUIT WITH PATIENCE. Luke 8:15
2. Patience is the personal trait that makes you inherit good things. “Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him.” These are the words of the psalmist. “Fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, for evil doers shall be cut off but those that wait on the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.”
That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who THROUGH faith and PATIENCE INHERIT the promises. Hebrews 6:12
3. Patience is the personal trait that will cause you to be approved. You will be approved because you were able to wait for your day of promotion. The ability to wait faithfully is always rewarded with promotion. Pastors of big churches are all people who have stayed in one place for many years. Pioneers of great organizations are people who have patiently waited with quiet endurance. Wait patiently and you will become someone who realised the vision he calmly worked for.
But in all things APPROVING OURSELVES AS THE MINISTERS OF GOD, IN MUCH PATIENCE, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses,
2 Corinthians 6:4
The Golden Eggs
One day, a farmer’s hen suddenly began laying golden eggs. One morning, upon going to the nest of his chickens he found a glittering yellow and glowing egg. When he took it up it was heavy and he was going to throw it away because he thought a trick had been played upon him. But he took it home on second thoughts. He soon found to his delight that it was a pure golden egg. Every morning the same thing occurred and he soon became rich by selling his golden eggs.
As he grew rich he began to calculate how much money he would have at the end of the year when his chicken would have laid over three hundred eggs. He started looking at the price of gold on the world market and started calculating based on the possible price in the future. He thought to himself, “I can’t wait for this chicken to lay an egg a day. It is too slow for me. If I could get all the eggs out of its stomach in one go, I would be very rich and could invest now in buildings and other businesses.” He thought to himself, “I would no longer need to be a farmer. I could go into real estate and other businesses.”
Then he had a brainwave and said to himself, “If I cut open the chicken’s stomach I could take out all the three hundred eggs and become a millionaire immediately. I will no longer have to prosper in bits and pieces as I am doing now.” The next day he cut open the chicken’s stomach and to his amazement there were no eggs. His impatience cost him his fortune. He could not wait for the golden eggs to be laid every day. He had to have it now…and now he had nothing because of his impatience! May you never be like this farmer!
This is the power of impatience. It is the power that destroys your own fruits and your own rewards. The power of impatience contains the power of self-destruction. Remember that patience is the good natured tolerance of delay. Patience will give it time without complaint. Patience has the ability to wait for the season of fruit-bearing and not cut short an amazing potential before its time. May you have this trait called “patience” so that you do not destroy your rewards before they are due!
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By Dag Heward-Mills