Practicing Patience

March 17, 2019

Practicing Patience

 

Genuine Faith

|marks of maturity from James|

 

This week at work has been challenging for me and my team. It seems that everything that could go wrong is going wrong. No matter what we do to fix things and make things right, everything continues to get worse. My job is to solve problems. But lately, these problems continue to stack up faster than we can resolve them. It's not for lack of trying either. I have worked extra hours, our team has put in extra hours and extra effort, and we have called in additional help from outside of our local team. Everyone is working hard putting their shoulder into it, but we still seem to be losing traction. For me and my team, this has been incredibly frustrating as problem after problem has tested our patience. I'm sure you have experienced similar circumstances. There are many others who are experiencing far greater challenges than my challenging week at work.

 

In James 5:7-12 he addresses an audience that is very familiar with suffering and injustice. In response to their suffering, James simply says "Be patient."  Not many of us have experienced the kind of persecution experienced by the Christians James was encouraging in his letter.  Nevertheless, most of us are familiar with real challenges, disappointments, and suffering in our own lives. To us, James also says "Be patient" as we endure the difficult seasons of life. In this small section of James' letter, we find four steps to practicing patience that help us endure and persevere through difficult seasons in life. In today's message we consider how to practice patience in all circumstances.