Almost everyone has struggled with impatience at some time, but God promises that through Jesus Christ, we can be empowered to receive the fruit of the Spirit which always leads to more and more patience.
Romans 8:25 declares, "But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."
As simple as that sounds, we have to admit that sometimes it can be a lot easier to act in impatience than patience, especially when waiting on God for His promises and His breakthrough.
It would be very unrealistic to say that God brings breakthrough right away. Truth be told, often God puts us through the test of waiting. Almost everyone in the Bible had to wait for a long time before they saw breakthrough. It took Abraham 25 years of waiting to see the promise of a son. It took Joseph a bout of slavery, imprisonment and a famine to see God's promises come to pass in His life. It took Moses and the Israelites 40 years of wandering before they would reach the foot of the promised land.
God often puts a season of waiting before breakthrough comes because the biggest hindrance to blessing is impatience. In our fallen nature, we often resort to acting impatiently and as a result start losing faith and confidence in God. But God builds seasons of waiting for us so that we will grow in the area of our patience because patience is one of the strongest manifestations of faith. You cannot be faithful without being patient.
When we feel impatient, we can look to God as the ultimate example and motivation to be patient because He has always been patient towards us. He has waited since the fall for this whole world to come into a fully loving relationship with Him, and He never forces us or manipulates us into loving and trusting Him, but faithfully and patiently He works in our hearts. 1 Corinthians 13:4 says, "Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant." There is no more perfect example of patient love than Jesus Christ Himself.
Often it's easy to forget that the battle has already been won by Jesus on the cross, and in His time, we will see God's breakthrough in our lives. God has a perfect and pleasing plan for our lives and it's so much better than what we have in mind. God asks only that we seek Him first, which partially means that we stand in faith and confidence most easily manifested through patience.
Things may not always go the way we want it to go and may often take longer than we wish it would, but instead of responding in impatience, we can choose to respond in trust knowing that God makes all things happen in His perfect time.
