Sermon Illustrations on patience
Background
Defining Patience
The Greek word used here (1 Cor. 13:4) for patience is a descriptive one. It figuratively means “taking a long time to boil.” Think about a pot of boiling water. What factors determine the speed at which it boils? The size of the stove? No. The pot? The utensil may have an influence, but the primary factor is the intensity of the flame. Water boils quickly when the flam is high. It boils slowly when the flame is low. Patience ‘keeps the burner down.”
Love for the Long Haul
Patience is love for the long haul; it is bearing up under difficult circumstances, without giving up or giving in to bitterness. Patience means working when gratification is delayed. It means taking what life offers—even if it means suffering—without lashing out. And when you’re in a situation that you’re troubled over or when there’s a delay or pressure on you or something’s not happening that you want to happen, there’s always a temptation to come to the end of your patience. You may well have lost your patience before you’re even aware of it.
Tim Keller, King’s Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus (New York: Dutton, 2011, p.59.
Patience is a Hard Discipline
Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict. Patience is not a waiting passivity until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later and somewhere else. Let’s be patient and trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.
The Virtue that Lies Beyond Heroism
God intended man to have all good, but in . . . God’s time; and therefore all disobedience, all sin, consists essentially in breaking out of time. Hence the restoration of order by the Son of God had to be the annulment of that premature snatching at knowledge, the beating down of the hand outstretched toward eternity, the repentant return from a false, swift transfer of eternity to a true, slow confinement in time. . . . Patience [is] the basic constituent of Christianity . . . the power to wait, to persevere, to hold out, to endure to the end, not to transcend one’s own limitations, not to force issues by playing the hero or the titan, but to practice the virtue that lies beyond heroism, the meekness of the lamb which is led.
Hans Urs von Balthasar, A Theology of History (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1994), 36-37.
Stories
Gronking
I’m sitting at a traffic light in my neighborhood, waiting for the red light to turn. I’m trying to be relaxed and unhurried about my life. Before I have a chance to respond to the light that has just turned green, the person behind me is already on his horn. It happens often enough that my wife and I have given this experience a name—gronk.
It is a contraction of green and honk, and it represents the nanosecond of time between the fresh green light in front of us and the angry horn blasting behind us. It is an inflammation of impatience. It is an utter lack of simple kindness. It is chronic and epidemic. And, bottom line, it is unloving.
Maybe this sounds to you like whining. I’m tempted to react: “Hey, gronker! What in the world is so important that my slow reaction time is such an offense to you? Do you have an appointment with the president? Are you trying to get your injured child to the hospital?” (I would understand a good solid gronk in this last case.) Probably not. Instead, that gronk is likely just a habit rooted in the belief that time is money and that hurry, therefore, is always profitable. If hurry gets in the way of love, does hurry go or does love go?
Taken from An Unhurried Life: Following Jesus’ Rhythms of Work and Rest by Alan Fadling Copyright (c) 2013 by Alan Fadling. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com
The Love Song
Richard Foster wrote once of a father walking through a mall with his two-year-old son. The child was cranky; he kept whining and wriggling and complaining. The father struggled to remain patient.
…[The father] scooped up his little two-year-old grumbler, held him tight to his chest, and began to sing an impromptu love song. None of the words rhymed. He sang it off-key, but as best as he could, he shared his heart: “I love you. I’m so glad you’re my boy. You make me laugh.” From store to store the father kept going, words not rhyming, notes off-key. His son relaxed, captivated by this strange and wonderful song.
Finally, when they had finished, the dad went to the car, buckled his son in the car seat, and his son raised his arms and lifted up his head. “Sing it to me again, Daddy. Sing it to me again.”
Taken from John Ortberg, Love Beyond Reason (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998).
The Marshmallow Test
Delayed gratification may be an important key to success in life, points out Mark Batterson. In a variety of experiments, the most famous from 1972, Walter Mischel studied how young children delayed gratification. In an experiment, a child from the ages of four to six would be offered a marshmallow or other treat and told that if they waited, they would be given another one. Children varied in their responses. Some grabbed the treat immediately. Others tried to resist. Mischel described children singing, hiding their head in their arms, stamping their feet, playing, praying, even falling asleep.
Mischel and his team tracked the many of the children through High School. Those who could resist simply taking the first marshmallow fared differently from those who could not wait. They scored higher on the SAT, they tended to do better in school and score higher on IQ tests and were more “socially competent.”
A followup study of the children in their early forties found “that the two-marshmallows-later children had higher incomes, stronger marriages, and happier careers.”
Batterson concludes: “goal-directed, self-imposed delay of gratification is a powerful predictor of future success in any endeavor.”
William Rowley, source, Mark Batterson, All In: You are one decision away from a totally different life, Zondervan, 2013.
The Patient Father
There is a story about a man who stopped in the grocery store on the way home from work to pick up a couple of items for his wife. He wandered around aimlessly for a while searching out the needed groceries. As is often the case in the grocery store,
he kept passing this same shopper in almost every aisle. It was another father trying to shop with a totally uncooperative three-year-old boy in the cart.
The first time they passed, the three-year-old was asking over and over for a candy bar. Our observer couldn’t hear the entire conversation. He just heard Dad say, “Now, Billy, this won’t take long.” As they passed in the next aisle, the three-year old’s pleas had increased several octaves. Now Dad was quietly saying, “Billy, just calm down. We will be done in a minute.”
When they passed near the dairy case, the kid was screaming uncontrollably. Dad was still keeping his cool. In a very low voice he was saying, “Billy, settle down. We are almost out of here.” The Dad and his son reached the check out counter just ahead of our observer. He still gave no evidence of loosing control. The boy was screaming and kicking. Dad was very calming saying over and over, “Billy, we will be in the car in just a minute and then everything will be OK.”
The bystander was impressed beyond words. After paying for his groceries, he hurried to catch up with this amazing example of patience and self-control just in time to hear him say again, “Billy, we’re done. It’s going to be OK.” He tapped the patient father on the shoulder and said, “Sir, I couldn’t help but watch how you handled little Billy. You were amazing.” Dad replied, “You don’t get it, do you?” I’m Billy!”
Source Unknown
Settling Accounts
The story is told of a farmer in a Midwestern state who had a strong disdain for “religious” things. As he plowed his field on Sunday morning, he would shake his fist at the church people who passed by on their way to worship. October came and the farmer had his finest crop ever–the best in the entire county.
When the harvest was complete, he placed an advertisement in the local paper which belittled the Christians for their faith in God. Near the end of his diatribe he wrote, “Faith in God must not mean much if someone like me can prosper.” The response from the Christians in the community was quiet and polite. In the next edition of the town paper, a small ad appeared. It read simply, “God doesn’t settle His accounts in October.”
Studies
Imagination Heightens Patience
In a study at UC Berkeley conducted by Adrianna Jenkins and Ming Hsu, it was discovered imagination may be the pathway needed to uncover patience. The study found when we imagine possible outcomes, it allows us to be more patient in a way that does not pull on our brain’s need to use willpower.
The technique has been dubbed “framing effects” where you provide yourself with different scenarios as to how options are presented to you. Even when the reward is identical, the way we frame them can spark imagination, which in turn produces a willingness to be more patient.
When Hsu told participants they could receive one hundred dollars tomorrow or $120 in thirty days, the researchers framed the option in what they called an “independent frame.” You could have this or that, and the option was an independent choice. Another way of giving the same reward was to provide a “sequence frame” to the option.
Researchers told participants they could have one hundred dollars tomorrow and zero dollars in thirty days, or zero dollars tomorrow and $120 in thirty days. When we provide our brain with a sequence, we have a greater ability to be patient. When we have an option to get up early or sleep in, the only thought process our brain typically engages in is what the immediate next consequence of not waking up will bring us.
We don’t think past that ten minutes of extra sleep. We use an independent frame. Get up now, or sleep in ten extra minutes. But what if we used a sequence to frame the option? We could sleep in ten extra minutes, or we could get up now which would give us ten minutes to make breakfast before leaving for work.
We typically don’t imagine, in that moment, what we could do with our ten extra minutes. We could meditate. We could eat. We could read. We could simply not feel the anxiety of rushing. The research indicates when we allow our brain a sequence of possibilities, it activates our ability to imagine what could be.
Taken from It’s Not Your Turn: What to Do While You’re Waiting for Your Breakthrough by Heather Thompson Day Copyright (c) 2021 by Heather Thompson Day. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com
Patience and Parking Spots
Have you ever felt like some people take longer to leave a parking spot when you are waiting for them? Well, apparently you are not just imagining it…Three separate studies have demonstrated that this is a real phenomenon.
Why? People seem to feel like they “own” the parking spot and thus take even longer when they know someone is waiting to take their parking spot:
Three studies showed that drivers leaving a public parking space are territorial even when such behavior is contrary to their goal of leaving. In Study 1 (observations of 200 departing cars), intruded-upon drivers took longer to leave than non intruded-upon drivers. In Study 2, an experiment involving 240 drivers in which level of intrusion and status of intruder were manipulated, drivers took longer to leave when another car was present and when the intruder honked.
Males left significantly sooner when intruded upon by a higher rather than lower status car, whereas females’ departure times did not differ as a function of the status of the car. There was evidence that distraction might explain some of this effect. In Study 3, individuals who had parked at a mall were asked about how they would react to intruders. Compared to what they believed other people would do, respondents said they would leave faster if the car were just waiting for them to leave but they would take longer to leave if the driver in the car honked at them.
Source: “Territorial Defense in Parking Lots: Retaliation Against Waiting Drivers” from Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Volume 27, Issue 9, pages 821–834, May 1997.
The Value of Patience
A 2007 study conducted at Fuller Theological Seminary found patient people were less likely to suffer from depression. Patient people were found to be more grateful and expressed they felt more connected to mankind. A study by Sarah Schnitker revealed people who rated themselves as having the ability to be patient with people around them also reported being more satisfied with their lives than people who were impatient. Schnitker also found patience was linked to hope. Patient people were more forgiving, they were more empathetic, and they were more equitable.
Taken from It’s Not Your Turn by Heather Thompson Day. Copyright (c) 2021 by Heather Marie Day. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com
Analogies
Defining Patience
The Greek word used here (1 Cor. 13:4) for patience is a descriptive one. It figuratively means “taking a long time to boil.” Think about a pot of boiling water. What factors determine the speed at which it boils? The size of the stove? No. The pot? The utensil may have an influence, but the primary factor is the intensity of the flame. Water boils quickly when the flam is high. It boils slowly when the flame is low. Patience ‘keeps the burner down.”
Love for the Long Haul
Patience is love for the long haul; it is bearing up under difficult circumstances, without giving up or giving in to bitterness. Patience means working when gratification is delayed. It means taking what life offers—even if it means suffering—without lashing out. And when you’re in a situation that you’re troubled over or when there’s a delay or pressure on you or something’s not happening that you want to happen, there’s always a temptation to come to the end of your patience. You may well have lost your patience before you’re even aware of it.
Tim Keller, King’s Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus (New York: Dutton, 2011, p.59.
Making Pearls out of Irritations
Most of us are aware of the fact that pearls come from oysters, but do you know how they are formed? It all begins with an irritation. Some foreign particle, for example, a piece of sand, works its way into the shell of the oyster. The oyster can’t push the sand out of the oyster, because it’s too big.
So what does the oyster do? The oyster finds this unwanted outsider bothersome, and so it responds by trying to cover it up by emitting a small secretion. And that’s just the beginning. The oyster continues to send out secretion after secretion in the hopes of covering that piece of sand. The bigger the particle, the more the secretions, and so eventually the bigger the pearl.
Life is also sometimes like that. The bigger the irritation, the greater the value. What irritates us is also often what requires our attention, because there’s probably something God wants to do with it.
Stuart Strachan Jr.
Oaks of Righteousness
In his excellent book, An Unhurried Life, Alan Fadling contrasts our overly busy lives with a vision of the kingdom from Isaiah chapter 61:
Isaiah envisioned a kingdom in which those people in need of grace become, over time, solidly rooted in God’s grace, enough so as to be able to extend his grace to others. He envisioned a kingdom where we would experience favor, comfort, blessing, honor, new perspectives and deepening roots that enable us to do the rebuilding, restoring, renewing work in places, structures and persons who have long been ruined (Is 61:4). These characteristics of oaks of righteousness are the fruit of apprenticeship.
Further, we, as these oaks of righteousness planted by the Lord, put his splendor on display, a display quite different from human excitement, enthusiasm and thrills. Splendor is quieter, stronger, less hurried and more deeply rooted. Oaks take a long time to grow. A newly planted acorn can take between two and three decades to provide significant shade, and these slow-growing oaks can live more than two hundred years. One reason for their longevity is the taproot they send deep into the earth that makes them very drought-resistant.
Oaks are indeed solid, stable, reliable, majestic trees—but it takes them a while to get there. Do we take that same long view of growing in Christ ourselves and helping others do the same? If so, what can we do to help others become attentive and teachable apprentices to him so that one day they will shine with his splendor and flourish in the fruit of his Spirit? Whatever it is that we do, I believe it will require a less hurried, longer perspective approach than we have commonly taken.
Taken from An Unhurried Life: Following Jesus’ Rhythms of Work and Rest by Alan Fadling Copyright (c) 2013 by Alan Fadling. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com
Patience is a Hard Discipline
Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict. Patience is not a waiting passivity until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later and somewhere else. Let’s be patient and trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.
Patience is More Than Endurance
Patience is more than endurance. A saint’s life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, and He stretches and strains, and every now and again the saint says–‘I cannot stand anymore.’ God does not heed, He goes on stretching till His purpose is in sight, then He lets fly. Trust yourself in God’s hands. Maintain your relationship to Jesus Christ by the patience of faith. ‘Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
Humor
The Love Song
Richard Foster wrote once of a father walking through a mall with his two-year-old son. The child was cranky; he kept whining and wriggling and complaining. The father struggled to remain patient.
…[The father] scooped up his little two-year-old grumbler, held him tight to his chest, and began to sing an impromptu love son. None of the words rhymed. He sang it off-key, but as best as he could, he shared his heart: “I love you. I’m so glad you’re my boy. You make me laugh.” From store to store the father kept going, words not rhyming, notes off-key. His son relaxed, captivated by this strange and wonderful song.
Finally, when they had finished, the dad went to the car, buckled his son in the car seat, and his son raised his arms and lifted up his head. “Sing it to me again, Daddy. Sing it to me again.”
Taken from John Ortberg, Love Beyond Reason (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998).
The Patient Father
There is a story about a man who stopped in the grocery store on the way home from work to pick up a couple of items for his wife. He wandered around aimlessly for a while searching out the needed groceries. As is often the case in the grocery store,
he kept passing this same shopper in almost every aisle. It was another father trying to shop with a totally uncooperative three-year-old boy in the cart.
The first time they passed, the three-year-old was asking over and over for a candy bar. Our observer couldn’t hear the entire conversation. He just heard Dad say, “Now, Billy, this won’t take long.” As they passed in the next aisle, the three-year old’s pleas had increased several octaves. Now Dad was quietly saying, “Billy, just calm down. We will be done in a minute.”
When they passed near the dairy case, the kid was screaming uncontrollably. Dad was still keeping his cool. In a very low voice he was saying, “Billy, settle down. We are almost out of here.” The Dad and his son reached the check out counter just ahead of our observer. He still gave no evidence of loosing control. The boy was screaming and kicking. Dad was very calming saying over and over, “Billy, we will be in the car in just a minute and then everything will be OK.”
The bystander was impressed beyond words. After paying for his groceries, he hurried to catch up with this amazing example of patience and self-control just in time to hear him say again, “Billy, we’re done. It’s going to be OK.” He tapped the patient father on the shoulder and said, “Sir, I couldn’t help but watch how you handled little Billy. You were amazing.” Dad replied, “You don’t get it, do you?” I’m Billy!”
Source Unknown
Settling Accounts
The story is told of a farmer in a Midwestern state who had a strong disdain for “religious” things. As he plowed his field on Sunday morning, he would shake his fist at the church people who passed by on their way to worship. October came and the farmer had his finest crop ever–the best in the entire county.
When the harvest was complete, he placed an advertisement in the local paper which belittled the Christians for their faith in God. Near the end of his diatribe he wrote, “Faith in God must not mean much if someone like me can prosper.” The response from the Christians in the community was quiet and polite. In the next edition of the town paper, a small ad appeared. It read simply, “God doesn’t settle His accounts in October.”
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