Patience!

 

Scripture

 1 Samuel 13:5-15

⁵ The Philistines mustered to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots, and six thousand horsemen, and troops like the sand on the seashore in multitude; they came up and encamped at Michmash, to the east of Beth-aven. ⁶ When the Israelites saw that they were in distress (for the troops were hard pressed), the people hid themselves in caves and in holes and in rocks and in tombs and in cisterns. ⁷ Some Hebrews crossed the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. Saul was still at Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling.

⁸ He waited seven days, the time appointed by Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people began to slip away from Saul. ⁹ So Saul said, “Bring the burnt offering here to me, and the offerings of well-being.” And he offered the burnt offering. ¹⁰ As soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, Samuel arrived; and Saul went out to meet him and salute him. ¹¹ Samuel said, “What have you done?” Saul replied, “When I saw that the people were slipping away from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines were mustering at Michmash, ¹² I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down upon me at Gilgal, and I have not entreated the favor of the Lord’; so I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering.” ¹³ Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which he commanded you. The Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever, ¹⁴ but now your kingdom will not continue; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart; and the Lord has appointed him to be ruler over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.” 

  ¹⁵ And Samuel left and went on his way from Gilgal.The rest of the people followed Saul to join the army; they went up from Gilgal toward Gibeah of Benjamin. Saul counted the people who were present with him, about six hundred men.  (NRSV) 

Devotion

 I am not, by nature, a patient person.  The longer I have to wait on something, the more I worry about everything that could go wrong.  The more anxious I become, the more tempted I feel to just go ahead and do something already.  The trouble is that when I give into that temptation and jump the gun on something, whatever project, idea, paper etc. that I am working on tends to go wrong.  If only I had been patient and followed the timeline set before me, things would have gone much better or smoother.  Several years ago, I took up cross stitch as a way of reminding me to be patient...for when I get going to fast or pull too hard, I miscount my stitches or tangle up my threads.

King Saul and his Israelite militia also struggled with patience.  When they were preparing for battle against the Philistines, Samuel told them that God wanted the to wait until he could come and make a sacrifice to bless them.  Samuel anticipated that it would take him 7 days to arrive at Saul's camp.  But as the people waited for Samuel to arrive, their anxiety began to get the best of them.  The Philistine army was much larger and better armed than the Israelites.  When Samuel's arrival was delayed, Saul's soldiers began slipping away to return to their homes.  They are not patient enough or trusting enough to believe that God would help them win the battle.  As Saul sees his troops decreasing and how the remaining ones tremble, he too runs out of patience himself.  He decides that instead of waiting for Samuel like he had been commanded to do, he will just go ahead and make his own sacrifice on behalf of his militia.  

Saul's impatient decision shows that he also isn't willing to trust or obey God as he should.  And the consequences of his impatience are more than just some tangled threads.  His soldiers will end up winning the battle, but his hasty actions will result in God deciding not to build a dynasty from Saul's line.  Instead, God will seek out a new King of Israel.  This new king will be someone who is patient enough, trusting enough, and obedient enough to follow God's commands...even when God tells that person to wait.

How often do we try to push forward when God is asking us to wait a minute?   Rev. Tim Shapiro of the Center for Congregations argues that one of the greatest impediments to positive change in congregations isn't an unwillingness to new things.  It is impatience.  Churches tend to rush ahead with implementing a new idea without giving enough time for God to help them think through everything.  When their plans run into unexpected difficulties and the project stalls, the people who were so excited to get started tend to get overwhelmed, angry, or disgusted and walk away from it.  This leaves churches scrambling to get things back on track.  If they cannot find the will or the way to do so, they are left with little more than dreams of what might have been if everyone had just been a little more patient.  The same pattern makes itself known in families, workplaces, community groups, legislative bodies...you name it.  Giving in to our impatience comes at a cost.

What could happen, though, if we made a point of being patient enough to wait upon the Lord?  What wonders might God work through us if we set our anxiety to get moving aside and worked through things on God's own time?  I hypothesize we all just calmed down a little and asked God to help guide us through things at the right pace, we could accomplish more than we ever dreamed.  I'm not saying that we shouldn't get moving when God tells us to do so; I am merely saying that it wouldn't hurt to show a little more patience when the time isn't quite right yet or we encounter with obstacles in our path.  For if we trust God enough to patiently see things through, then God will bless our endeavors.

This week, I'm going to commit to being more patient.  I plan pull out my cross-stitch and pray for God to help me wait just a little longer on certain things.  While I'm at it, I'll ask for the perseverance to keep faithfully working on the things that have gotten bogged down.  I invite you to join me.  Pick up something that requires you to quiet your mind and take your time.  And as you proceed with whatever that thing is, ask Holy Spirit to bring you the patience you need to do Christ's will according to God's timeline.  If we all can be just a little more patient in our life and work, then we accomplish great things in Christ's name.      

Prayer

 God, your plans come to fruition in your good time.  Help me to be patient as I obey your will and do my part to fulfill your commandments.  I trust that with you to guide me, I can help make great things happen.

Works Cited

 Shapiro, Tim. How Your Congregation Learns : The Learning Journey from Challenge to Achievement. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.