Patience for People in Process
If God handed out the fruit of the Spirit in a line, my husband used to joke that I was standing at the back when patience got passed around. It was funny because it was true. Patience has always been my weakest fruit, and I am learning it slower than I would like to admit.
I was recently working through a Bible study on the fruit of the Spirit, and the session on patience spoke to me where I was. The study taught me something I have not been able to shake since: everyone we meet is a person in progress. We are too.
Impatience Is My Weakest Fruit
I know what it feels like when someone is not doing their job right, or when a person’s tone grates on me, or when I run out of room for one more demand on my attention. In those moments, patience is the last thing I reach for. Irritation comes first, and it comes fast.
I used to think that reaction said something permanent about my character. Slow to grow. Hard to change. But Galatians 5:22-23 does not call patience a personality trait. It calls it fruit.
“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23, NLT)
Fruit grows. It is something the Spirit is producing in you right now, season by season, even in the seasons when you feel farthest from it.
Everyone We Meet Is a Person in Progress
Here is where the study turned something over in me. The people who test my patience the most are the people closest to me. And every one of them is in process, like I am.
The neighbor who is short with me may be carrying a weight I cannot see. The friend who keeps repeating herself may still be working through something I settled long ago. The person who irritates me is not finished being formed any more than I am.
Philippians 1:6 puts it this way.
“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” (Philippians 1:6, NLT)
God is not finished with them. He is not finished with me either. When I remember that, my irritation loses some of its grip. I am being asked to extend the same patience toward someone else’s unfinished story that God extends toward mine.
Waiting Is the Circumstance, Patience Is the Work
I have started to see a difference between waiting and patience. Waiting is the circumstance. It is the traffic, the diagnosis, the slow apology, the child who will not listen, the season that will not move as fast as I want it to.
Patience is what the Spirit grows in me while I wait. Waiting happens to me. Patience happens in me.
James describes this shaping process too.
“So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” (James 1:4, NLT)
Endurance is developed. It is built through the circumstances I would rather skip past. Waiting is the workshop where patience is formed.
Strong Without Becoming Hard
At the end of that study, I read a blessing I have carried with me since. May God give you the patience for the process, that you trust his timing, keep growing in grace, and become strong without becoming hard.
That last line is the one I keep returning to. Strong without becoming hard. Because impatience does not just cost the person in front of me. It costs me something too. Every time I let irritation win, a small edge forms. Over time the edges harden into something I do not want to become.
Patience is what keeps strength soft. It lets me hold high standards for people without holding grudges against them for still being in process.
A Prayer for the Process
If you find yourself out of patience today, you are not disqualified from growth. You are in the middle of it. The person who is testing your patience is in the middle of theirs.
May God give you the patience for the process. May you trust his timing, keep growing in grace, and become strong without becoming hard.
If this spoke to something you are carrying, I would love to hear about it. Leave a comment below or reply to this week’s email and tell me who or what is testing your patience right now. You are not alone in the process, and neither am I.
Famia Green
Author | Blogger | Bible Teacher
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