The Love of Patience
Greetings and good morning, brothers and sisters. This is Dr. James Perry continuing with our series
where we seek to explore the deeper meanings of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Over the years,
the heavenly Father has revealed many revelations of spiritual truth to me, and I want to share them
with you. This morning we seek to understand the meaning of the love of patience.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
The Love of Patience
"Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect way,
that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." James, Chapter 1, Verses 3 and 4
Brothers and sisters, in today’’s broadcast, we share some further insights concerning patience.
Patience is so important in obeying the Father’’s eternal command to be perfect even as He is that
we should learn to not passively tolerate it but love it. The environment of the delays of time and the
handicaps of space we live in conspire to give us an opportunity to learn patience. And while this
experience of acquiring patience can be grueling for some of us who refuse to grasp its value and
therefore fail to comprehend the meaning concealed in the spiritual quality of patience, most
eventually submit to it. It is one thing to submit to a thing and quite another to love it. It is our aim
to increase the appreciation of the quality of patience (long suffering) so that we can better
understand it, and therefore cooperate with its mission-and ultimately to love it.
Patience or long suffering is one of the most difficult fruits of the spirit to appreciate. And we
recognize that some of the fruits of the spirit are more easy to grasp than others and we embrace
those more readily than the others. But all of the divine values are necessary to obey the Father’’s
perfection command. We want to show that if we understand the motive of patience, we can better
understand this quality; if we truly understand it, we shall learn to appreciate it and learn to truly love
it. Let us consider an analogy to help us intellectually understand the nature of patience.
We have two kinds of air transports for getting from one point to another by air. One is the prop
airplane that relies upon the propellers to propel air over the wings, thus supplying the lift. The other
is the jet plane that uses the force of a jet to move the plane through the air and thus air over its
wings. The prop plane is used for relatively short distances, and it flies at an altitude where it
experience all the turbulence of the atmosphere. We who have been passengers in this kind of plane
know the sometimes uncomfortable feeling that we experience as the plane is buffeted by the winds.
It also imparts quite a bit of anxiety in the mind and a sense of uneasiness.
The jet plane flies above the weather, and when it reaches its cruising altitude, we can barely tell that
it’’s moving. It is such a comfortable ride. And nothing happens for the most part to give us pause
for concern. This is the difference between patience and impatience. As long as we ride within the
jet plane of patience, we have tranquility of spirit, and can relax as we move towards our destination.
The perfection of our characters requires a wide variety of stimuli to bring forth the slumbering
potential of our souls. There is no magic involved here. This is real work that is the result of
choosing the Father’’s will when confronted with the alternate choice of choosing our will. The
qualities of faith, truth, hope, goodness, gentleness, long suffering, peace, joy, temperance, and
meekness require a variety of stimuli from the environment.
As we are confronted with the opposite of these qualities, a decision must be made to choose the
divine qualities. Choosing these qualities in the face of a hostile environment requires courage and
faith. And most important to the unfolding of these qualities is the acquirement of patience. If we
truly are desirous of wholeheartedly doing the Father’’s will, than we must exercise patience, for
without it we will not succeed. These acquisitions require time, and time means delay, and delay
causes tranquility of spirit which can only be had by the exercise of patience
.
Faith requires us to "believe without seeing, persevere when isolated, and triumph over insuperable
difficulties even when alone." Brothers and sisters, without the exercise of divine patience, we can
do nothing worthwhile. Even in our purely material activities, failure to exercise appropriate patience
results in delays and worse in abject failure.
We are in pursuit of acquiring a character like the heavenly Father’’s (as his Son, Jesus,
demonstrated). We have to acquire a character like Jesus in order to recognize the Father. Always
we will continue to become more and more like Father. Frankly, there is no end to this journey. Our
destination is endless because the Father is endless. So, is there really a rush? Let’’s not be like
motorists in a busy city rushing from stop light to stop light. The potentials of the soul unfold
according to the will of the Father who has concealed these potentials in space and reveals them in
time.
Since there is no end to our journey, why not stop and smell the roses along the way? Why not enjoy
the beauty of the values of patience and recognize what they do for us, and love them? Let us ride
that jet plane of patience with its tranquility of spirit which we love rather than ride the prop plane
of impatience which we hate. And let’’s not forget that patience and faith are linked. We must
believe that there is some worthy goal to achieve in order to be patient. What greater goal can there
be than to be perfect even as the heavenly Father is perfect? And what greater achievement can there
be than to realize this goal? And what greater quality can we have while we go through all of these
amazing metamorphoses of change than tranquility of spirit which is the reward for exercising
patience?
This concludes today's message on understanding the meaning of the love of patience. We hope you
find something in this message to ponder and pray about as you go about your day.
Until next time,this is Dr. James Perry.
Inspirational Messages
By Dr. James Perry
Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done!
The Love of Patience
