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I had a friend recently with whom I was discussing patience. She told me she stopped asking God for patience, because every time she prayed that way troubles would come her way, and she realized that He was answering her prayer in the affirmative! She admitted she didn’t want patience that badly! I commend her on her honesty! Most of us are not that brave. We mouth a desire to be patient, but we dread what it takes to develop it!

In the Gospel lesson for today Jesus displays some interesting sides to patience. First of all, He complains. He sets up a little scene where the Pharisees are the recalcitrant ones who will not engage with the Holy Spirit: we played the flute and you did not dance, we wailed and you did not mourn. You weren't satisfied with the ascetic John or the festive Son of Man, but in the end, wisdom is vindicated by her deeds. Then Jesus thanks God for revealing wisdom to infants and hiding it from the wise. He reminds us that truth about the Father comes, not by human deduction, but by revelation. No one knows the Father except the Son, no one knows the Son except the Father. Jesus, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, is the great Revealer. And what He reveals about God is that God is a God of community: Come to me whoever is heavy-laden; and a God of strength: I will give you rest; and a God of comfort: My yoke is easy and my burden is light. It’s worth waiting for revelation! So what does this teach us about patience? That revelation happens personally: The Son of God revealed the nature of God’s mind in creation, and the nature of God’s heart in the incarnation. But He reveals Himself as well to the individual seeker who desires to know Him: “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you.” In fact, He is always revealing Himself to everyone, but people respond at different times and ways, according to the tenor and temper of their own souls. In wisdom and compassion God waits patiently for people to respond. He always has the door open.

I. Patience is a virtue with three basic components.

A. Patience has endurance:

1. It can hang on in the face of adversity. It is being willing to take the next step even though it seems hopeless, pointless, or even impossible.
2. It sees the end even when it is out of sight
3. It is developed through adversity.

a) Endurance is trusting that there are reserves within you of which you did not know—
b) Reserves of your own that have been hidden,
c) And reserves the Spirit gives when needed.

4. It has a high tolerance for pain.

a) Pain management techniques

(1) Put pain in perspective of the goal:
(2) Manage smaller increments of pain in order to manage large pains:
(3) Isolate the pain--divide and conquer.

b) Pain is not to be feared, it is the doorway to growth.

B. Patience is focused on the goal.

1. A clear picture of the goal is essential to learning patience.

a) Knowing the goal will determine the strategies we use to deal with the wait—practical applications of patience.

(1) Proactive activities:

(a) Do what you can and don’t worry about what you can’t.
(b) Describe clearly what you have control over and what you don’t—
(c) Work on what you can control and don’t worry about what you can’t.

(2) Evaluation:

(a) Rate yourself on how patient you have been in a given situation on a scale of 1-10.

(i) 1: you’re like a baby with a hungry tummy.
(ii) 10: You can wade through the tribulations of Job without complaining.

(b) Make it a game, a contest with yourself.

(3) Rewards:

(a) Link them to the goal of being patient:
(b) Make them attainable and compelling enough to work for you.

b) Focusing on the goal helps manage attitude:

C. But sometimes the goal cannot be known clearly.

1. True patience handles ambiguity well.
2. It lets answers emerge by process, rather than all at once.
3. It can impose order creatively.
4. Most of all, patience can “sit in the anxiety,"

a) True patience is realistic and honest
b) And it responds rather than reacts:

(1) It doesn't have to "fix it" right away.
(2) It doesn't suppress creative solutions.
(3) It can wait for the real issue to surface before taking action.

II. Patience is like digging a well.

A. You only make headway when you’re at the bottom of the hole!
B. How else can the power of God be made known to the world unless all our resources are first exhausted?

Fr. Paul Moore+