How long I ask?  How long do we be patient?  We want things,  we wait in line, we sit in traffic, we want better and nicer cars, we want children that behave, we ask God for things, we wait!  But, are we patient?  Let’s go to the Scriptures.  I’d like to start off in Genesis 61  this is where God has decided to destroy all the inhabitants on the earth but finds favor in one guy along with his family.  Noah, poor Noah right?  It’s like God decided to wipe everything from the face of the earth and you and your family are the designated survivors.  Oh my goodness, could you imagine the look on his face?

Wow!  Then Noah gets the good news.  God is like, “Noah, I would like you to build me a ship the size of the Titanic so it can hold you and your family and all the animals on the earth.”  And you’re like, “Can I just purchase all the wood and materials from Lowe’s or Home Depot and get a few hundred laborers to help me?”

No, of course not.  Instead, God was like. “There’s the forest and you can use your boys to help you okay?”

“Okay, see you in like 100 years!” LOL  But in all seriousness, Noah was chosen for a reason.  He was a man with great faith, hope, and patience.  Noah more than likely excepted the task with great honor and set out on a mission with clear direction and with patience, Noah and his sons built the ark.  Somewhere in the timeline of 75 to 120 years patiently waiting for the great flood.  Imagine having to wait 50, 75, 100, or 120 years for something?

Well, let’s look at the definition of patience.  By the world standards, patience is the capacity to accept or tolerate delay or suffering without getting angry.  Wow, so by the world’s standards, you really don’t see this being played out.  Bigger, better, more, and immediately we want it.  We live in a now society.  We want what we want and we want it now.  But as Christians, we are called by God to display the characteristics of Christ, one of them being patience.

Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”  We can practice patience everywhere, at the grocery store, waiting for our spouse to get ready, in traffic, on the phone when you call the cable company.  The world provides us with countless situations where we can display our godly, Christ-like characteristics.  Especially the character of patience and all too many times we fall short.

I want to talk about patience in a different arena.  This area of patience has to do with our ability to patiently wait on the Lord.  The Bible says in Psalms 37:4  ” Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

Take delight in, to trust, love, have complete confidence, cherish, and believe it.  So if we take delight in the Lord, trust him, and believe in His word, take Him for face value, then we must believe in His Word, the very Word that says be patient.

Imagine you can go through life not wanting for anything but desiring things in your heart and knowing through patience we will be given it.  Yeah, but you say, “Like what?  And for how long?”  Well, that’s where our spiritual food places a role in all of this.  We must actually trust in the Lord and believe in all things.  So if Noah could trust God’s Word that the whole earth would be destroyed, that he would be the only survivor and to build an ark to save his family and all the animals and not know what date…that should be the only example we need.   Because that’s one of the greatest displays of patience, trust, and hope ever recorded!  I can tell you with certainty, that a recipe filled with patience and faith, more like the patience of a mustard seed-like faith, will produce desires of the heart.  It’s only a matter of time before the results will change your outlook on life and make for a life filled with the desires of your heart.  And to know God’s love and contentment, knowing He’s always there and He’ll always provide.