How patient are you?

How patient are you? The closer you get to the end of the New Testament, the more the word ‘patience’ and its bedfellow ‘perseverance’ begin to dominate.

If you live your life purely in the book of Acts, reading about church planting, city riots, earthquakes smashing open prison bars, and the gospel racing from Jerusalem to Rome at breakneck speed, you might get the wrong impression of what faithful gospel ministry looks like.

Yes, there are moments of both glorious, Spirit-inspired breakthrough and other seasons of crisis, when you can almost feel Satan’s breath on your shoulder. But for a whole lot of Christian ministry there is that need for quiet, faithful endurance, when nothing particularly exciting seems to be happening, either good or bad. And that’s when the words ‘patience’ and ‘perseverance’ come to the fore.

James 5:7 puts it beautifully: ‘Be patient, then, brothers and sisters … See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains.’ The patience of a farmer is so apt when it comes to gospel ministry. A farmer knows how to sow and needs to keep doing that year in and year out, but he is not in control of the weather, the quality of the soil, or the fruit that will emerge.

He spends much of his life ‘plugging away’. At times there is real fruit, at others it is dryness, and constantly he is waiting. Waiting for the heavens to open, and the rains to come. Our job as gospel ministers is to sow faithfully, looking to heaven, and praying with passion, for God to bring the increase.

So, what keeps us going in the dry times? Verses 7 and 8 form a small ‘inclusio’ with the idea of the Lord’s coming. ‘Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming … the Lord’s coming is near.’ What keeps us going is knowing that the Lord is coming. There is the wider lens here of the Lord returning in power and glory to reward those who have faithfully served Him. That is a day we need to hold constantly before us.

But if you have been in ministry for any length of time, you know that there are also a series of mini ‘comings’. I have a pastoral colleague who keeps praying ‘may the Lord show up’ as we pray for everything from evangelistic events to tense pastoral meetings. He is not questioning that God is with us all the time, but reflecting the reality that God shows up in amazing ways at various points of ministry, when we have waited for and longed for His power at work.

So, keep going because ultimately the Lord Jesus will return in power and glory to gather in His harvest, and any part you have played in that will be rewarded beyond your dreams. But keep going also because God keeps ‘showing up’ here and now, when we have gone through a dry spell, and remained faithful when there was little encouragement. We have passed the test of patience and endurance, and God visits us with special blessing, in a way that refreshes our whole ministry.

This call to be patient will last until the day we see Him face to face. Patience is one of the most beautiful but least heralded fruits of the Spirit. We so often equate the Spirit with moments of inspiration, but He is even more involved in the spiritual gift of ‘stickability’ when the going is tough, and our souls are parched. Now, perhaps more than ever, as the church continues to recover from the impact of Covid, and regather again, looking for fresh impetus, let’s be patient with each other, with our congregations, and above all in our times with the Lord, as we wait for the heavens to open.