PATIENCE IS THE WOMB OF FAITH...
My brothers, count it all joy when you fall into
different kinds of temptations, knowing that the trying of your faith works
patience. But let patience have its perfect work, so that you may be perfect
and entire, lacking nothing. (James 1:2-4 MKJV)
Over
the years, and especially in recent times, the Church has placed a lot of
emphasis on faith – and rightly so – because the Christian walk is essentially
a walk of faith (See Romans 1:17, Romans 10:9, Galatians 2:20, Ephesians 2:8,
Hebrews 11:6). We are saved through faith, we live by faith and we maintain our
relationship with God by faith. Nonetheless, the Bible is clear about the need
to supplement our diet of faith with other important ingredients which I like to call “core
vitamins.” Patience is one of these core vitamins (See II Peter 1:4-8).
In
today’s fast-paced world of jet travels, instant photography, fast food
restaurants, high speed internet and what have you; it is not unlikely that
patience has become alien to quite a number of us. Well, what exactly is
patience? Patience is endurance. It is holding
on to the Word of God without wavering regardless of circumstances. Patience
is that quiet confidence that awaits the manifestation of what God has promised.
It is holding on to the confession of our faith without faltering, knowing that
He who called us is faithful (I Thessalonians 5:24).
Abraham
is one person that readily comes to mind here. In spite of contrary
circumstances, he believed God. He agreed with God that he was Abraham – father
of many nations – when he did not even have a child (now, that’s faith) and he
continued in faith for decades even when it seemed that nothing was happening
(that’s patience). In the process of waiting, Abraham kept meditating on the
faith pictures that God had given him. He did not change his mind and revert to
his old name. Rather, he continued to call himself and his wife by the names
the Lord had called them even when the physical circumstances were obviously contrary.
Abraham is popularly known as Father of
Faith. But really, I think he’s Father of Faith and Patience. The fact is,
he became Father of Faith because he was Father of Patience. His faith would
have been unproductive if he had not added patience.
Now,
patience is not a passive resignation to fate. It is not accepting anything and
everything the devil throws at us. Rather, patience is resisting the devil by actively
standing on the Word. While waiting for the manifestation of God’s promise, we
must continue to declare the truth of God’s Word with conviction. This is how
we still the raging storms of doubt and fear that the devil brings our way as
we await the physical reality of God’s Word. We must hold on to our confession
of faith – and we must be willing to hold on forever. That willingness to hold on to our confession until we see our manifestation
is what the Bible calls patience.
Patience
is the womb of faith. There is a gestation period between your confession of
faith and its physical manifestation. It's patience that nurtures faith through
that gestation period. Patience provides a conditioned environment that shields
faith from the harsh realities of external circumstances until the delivery
day. Just like it takes a process of time for the germinal vesicle to become an
ovum, the ovum to be fertilised by the sperm to give a zygote, and for the
zygote to become a foetus and finally a complete human being (a new creation
that did not exist before), it takes a similar process of time for the seed of
God's Word to become implanted/engrafted in our hearts and create new realities
that did not exist before.
By
faith, we confess the reality of things that are not, as though they were. By
patience, we wait for the physical manifestation of what we have confessed.
Just like the baby had existed in the realm of the spirit but it took a process
of time to make it manifest in time, everything we need is already existing in
another form but it takes a process to transform it into what we desire; and
that requires patience. The reason many people don't receive the promise is
because they've aborted it by lack of patience.
We
all have a measure of faith. But from Hebrews 6:12-15, Hebrews 10:36 and other
Scriptures, we see that it takes faith and patience
to inherit the promise. For you have need
of patient endurance, so that having done the will of God, you shall receive
the promise. (You may want to look up these references in the Contemporary English Version and The Message). God has dealt to every man
a measure of faith but every man has to develop patience by a process of
spiritual workouts. Just like we develop endurance in sports and athletics by
various exercises or “tests,” we develop patience in essentially the same way. When
tests and trials come, we must see them as “workouts” designed to exert our
spiritual muscles. We must not succumb passively; we must fight and fight on to
victory (See Ephesians 6:10-18). The testing of our faith then produces
patience.
Faith
without patience is like planting a seed and then uprooting the seedling before
it has time to produce fruits. If we want to live fruitful lives, we must learn
patience (Luke 8:15, James 5:7-8). Even God is patient, and He has made
patience one of the built-in features of our universe. For instance, you cannot
force a tree to produce fruits before its time. You cannot force the day to
break before dawn. You cannot harvest immediately after you plant. The
importance of patience cannot be overemphasised. I encourage every Christian to
do a personal Bible Study on this crucial factor without which our faith
becomes ineffective and unproductive. In the meantime, I want you to always
remember this: “No conception without
faith; no delivery without patience. It takes faith to conceive and patience to
deliver.”
Blessings!
