Patience is a lost virtue
By Christy Rood | September 24, 2008
I am an impatient person. When I was 3, I wanted to swim in the river with my older sister and brother, and almost drowned. When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be in high school. When I was in high school, I wanted to be in college. When I was in college, I wanted to be married. When I was married, I wanted kids. Now that I have young kids, I can’t wait until they are old enough to be more independent.
I’m an impatient driver. My driving is in some ways a metaphor for my life. It is a race. I get behind the shortest line at the red light. If the lines are equal, I get behind the car I think will go fastest. I get frustrated with slow drivers, bad drivers, traffic, construction, red lights. I’m impatient in the store. I try to find the line that will move fastest, and if there is a long line, I love the self-checkout lane! I can’t handle a slow internet connection, or cassette tapes, or CD’s for that matter.
I’m not alone. There is an epidemic of impatience in America today. We can find out the sex of our babies through DNA testing in the first 6 weeks of pregnancy. We are suddenly dissatisfied with our current operating system whenever we learn there’s an even faster one coming out. There is even a term for it called The Economics of Impatience – which is basically banks and retailers using our impatience to their companies’ advantage.
It used to be that impatience was something you grew out of when you became an adult. When you’re a kid, your parents and teachers continually drilled into you the foolishness of impatience. Think about the children’s stories that deal with impatience – The Tortoise and the Hare and The Three Little Pigs to name a few. And then there are the “wise sayings” adults loved to say to you when you were a kid like “Haste makes waste”, and “All good things come to those who wait”, and “Practice Makes Perfect”, and “Fools rush in.” But now, it seems like patience is no longer a sign of maturity. In many ways, impatience is held up as more virtuous these days.
Albert Einstein understood the impatience of youth when he said, “the faster you go, the shorter you are.” And Saint Augustine placed high value on the virtue of patience when he said, “patience is the companion of wisdom.” Why are we more wise when we are patient? Well, the first reason I can think of is that patience is a fruit of the spirit. But, the second reason I can see is that our example, Christ, was a patient man. He waited 30 years to begin his ministry, when he knew he would only live to 33. He was continually patient with the humanity of his disciples (especially Peter). He was never in a hurry. He stopped to play with children. He stopped at a well and struck up a conversation with a Samaritan woman. If you were God, and you knew you only had 2 ½ years to prove it to the world, wouldn’t your life take on a frantic nature?
Our greatest mandate as Christians is to love God and love others. How can we love them if we’re so darn impatient with them all the time? Think about the number of times in your life you have gotten antsy waiting for God to work things out, so you just took the matter into your own hands. Proverbs 23: 14 says, “Wait for the LORD; Be strong, and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the LORD.” And I can’t even count the times when I’ve gotten impatient with other people, completely ignoring my own faults and weaknesses. One of the great church fathers Tertullian said, “Patience is the mother of mercy.” I’d say it can go the other way too – the more merciful we are with people (recognizing that we are all flawed humans in need of God’s grace), the more patient we can be with them. Aren’t you glad God isn’t as impatient with you as you are with others?
So, let’s take a deep breath and live a little more patiently. Let’s take a walk with our kids and let them explore along the way without hurrying them along. Let’s leave our blackberries and cell phones at home once in awhile. Let’s save up the money for a new couch instead of putting it on credit. Let’s take the virtue of patience off the shelf, dust it off, and put it to good use.
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