Let us pray: We thank You, our dear Father, for another opportunity given to us by You to meet for this hangout and learn from You. We pray that You will fill our hearts with understanding and strength, as You teach us, so that we may go and be fruitful with the things You will teach us. For we have asked in Jesus’ name. Amen.
We have been looking at the areas in which we need to work on ourselves, if we are to be suitable for any love relationship that will end in a home of joy, peace and prosperity. We are doing this because it takes two people to build a home, not one person. So, both those who want to go into a love relationship have to be of good character. Otherwise, they will not be able to build the kind of home God will want to see.
All of this is why we have been saying that each of us must develop godly character and get rid of anything that is inconsistent with righteousness in us. That way, we will not be a problem to anybody God leads to us for a beautiful love relationship and future home.
Now the last thing we looked at and said we must take care of is insensitivity. Another quality we need to possess in increasing measure, if we are to be able to build a love relationship that will result in a beautiful home, is patience. Patience, as we see, is a fruit of the Spirit. So, if we have the Spirit of God in us, we can demonstrate patience. And we must be demonstrating patience.
Why is it important that we are demonstrating patience? It is important because there are things we cannot receive from God without patience. The Bible says this to us about patience:
“We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.” (Heb 6:12 NIV)
Did you see that? Faith alone is not enough to receive a fulfilment of certain promises of God to us. Patience also must be applied to our faith. Otherwise, we may mess up the fulfilment of God’s promises to us.
Consider Abraham and Sarah, for example. They both had faith in God to give them a child of their own. But at some point, they became impatient and tried to help God by bringing Hagar into their lives. And that messed up many things for them. If God, then, had not been merciful to them, they would not have witnessed or experienced the fulfilment of His promise to them. (Cf. Gen 16)
So, it is important that we learn patience in our walk with God, even before we go into any love relationship. Otherwise, we may mess things up in our love relationships or future homes.
No one who is getting married, and who has no obvious medical condition, looks forward to barrenness in their home.. But there are godly married people today who are still childless, even though they have been married for years. What do such people need? Patience! But if they are not patient, the pressure of those around them may lead them to act like Abraham and Sarah or even do worse things.
Also, no one goes into a marriage expecting to be poor all their life. But there are godly people who have been married for years and are still poor. Some may not have started out in poverty. But things went wrong for them at some point, as in the case of Job, and they found themselves in poverty.
Now I am not talking about people who have no regard for God. Rather, I am talking about those who love God, who are devoted to living to please Him and who are also hardworking. Yet things are simply not going well for them in their homes. What do such people need? Patience!
But if they have not learnt patience before they get married, do you think they will be able to conjure it up during marriage and when they are faced with all kinds of financial pressure? They may not.
That explains why some marriages are not working, even though those in them are believers in Christ Jesus. They cannot be patient with God and with themselves. So, they may end up turning to ungodly means of making money to sort themselves out. Some may even abandon themselves or life altogether.
A sister told me why she ended up leaving her husband. According to her, though they did not marry in poverty, things went bad at some point for them financially. And at some point, the husband began to say things like, “If I knew where so and so did money rituals, I too might go there, as long as it would not require human sacrifice.” That, of course, was when she realised that she and their little boy might no longer be safe in that house. So, she left.
Why did that young man think like that? This was someone who had been a member of a true church of God. Yet he could think of doing money rituals when faced with financial pressure. The problem with him, as with many young people today, was impatience.
See, even if you are trusting God and doing everything right, it still does not mean that you will become a billionaire tomorrow. I know that most of our motivational speakers hardly teach anything on patience. They often give their audience the impression that success is always 2 + 2 = 4. But even if one is doing everything right, there are all kinds of combinations of circumstances that may not make success possible right away.
Look at what Solomon, one of the richest man that ever lived, said about this:
“I have observed something else under the sun. The fastest runner doesn’t always win the race, and the strongest warrior doesn’t always win the battle. The wise sometimes go hungry, and the skillful are not necessarily wealthy. And those who are educated don’t always lead successful lives. It is all decided by chance, by being in the right place at the right time.” (Eccl 9:11 NLT)
Did you see that? Success in life is not just a function of possessing the right and sufficient abilities. It also has to do with being in the right place at the right time. And who alone can lead people to the right place at the right time? God! Since God, then, is the only one that can lead us to the right place at the right time, we have to learn to patiently follow Him.
Think of Joseph, for example. Why were all the beautiful dreams given to him by God eventually fulfilled? The reason was that he was patient. Yes, he was a man of faith. But he had to be patient too. He had to be patient while he was in slavery. He also had to be patient while he was in prison.
In short, he had to wait for about thirteen years for God’s plans for his life to begin to materialise.
Some of us may not have to wait as long as Joseph did in order to experience a fulfilment of certain promises of God to us. And some have to wait longer. But there are certain promises of God for us that may not come to pass, if we are not patient.
Do you know that even in praying to God for the right love partner, we still need to be patient? Sadly, many of us don’t want to exercise patience. You have prayed to God about the kind of person that you want for your life. And you can see that the people coming are not answers to that prayer. Will you be patient until the answer to your prayer comes? Or will you go for just anyone that shows up?
In the story of how Abraham’s servant got a wife for Isaac, we see that though the man prayed to God about the kind of woman he would want for Isaac, he still had to patiently watch to see if Rebekah was the woman. He did not just pick any young woman that showed up. Instead, he picked the one that was an answer to his prayer. (Cf. Gen 24)
What I am saying is that if Rebekah, the first lady that the man met at the well that day, had not behaved herself properly and lovingly, the man would not have considered her to be an answer to his prayer. He would have exercised more patience until the right person showed up.
But ask yourself, if you are already in a love relationship: “Is the person with me now an answer to the prayers I have offered to God?” If the person is not an answer to the prayer you offered to God, why did you choose them? Impatience! You probably thought you were wasting too much time waiting. Or you thought that you could manage the person, seeing that no one is perfect after all.
Well, the truth of the matter is that as long as you allow impatience to make you go for something contrary to the will of God for you, you will have to face the repercussions. Sarah faced the repercussions of bringing Hagar into her marriage. And many married people too are facing the repercussions of their impatience in choosing individuals that were not suitable for them. Do you also want to be added to the list?
If you don’t want that, then, you need to begin to evaluate your patience. How patient are you, to start with, with God? And let me quickly say this: Being patient with God is actually being patient with ourselves. That is because God lives in eternity. So, there is no need for Him to be in a hurry to do anything for Himself. He always has the time to do for Himself whatever He wants or needs to do.
We, however, live in a world that is time-bound. Therefore, if we don’t get to do certain things at some point in our lives, we may never be able to do them again. And if we don’t get to have certain things at some point in our lives, we may never be able to enjoy them again, even if we should later have them. So, we are always in a hurry about what we want to do and what we want to have.
But then, we and the people in our lives are not always ready for what we want to have or do. And God knows this. So, in His mercy and loving-kindness, He will bring about or permit certain circumstances that will make us ready for what we want to do or have at the right time. That being the case, God really is not the one we are being patient with; we ourselves are the ones we are being patient with. And if we do not understand this, we may give room to impatience and ruin the works of God for our lives.
My prayer is that God will teach your heart patience in all your endeavours in life, so that you will not ruin the good works He is doing for your prosperity and peace of mind, in Jesus’ name. We will end our hangout here this evening. Thank you, everyone.