Power

to Change

A Four-Week
Homily Series
Preparing for
Pentecost

Week 3 - The Fruit of the Spirit is Patience

"Patience: the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, difficulty, or annoyance
without getting angry or upset." Patience means giving up my way and my
timing, without getting angry. It means waiting on things or people in situations that are out of my
control. The question Why am I so impatient? really means Why is it so hard for me to give up my
way and my timing? There are many reasons we can probably think of, but underneath them all
theres one real cause of our impatience: sin has wounded us and left us trusting ourselves more
than God with our lives, our plans, our wants, etc. The result is that on any given day, we tend to
want what we want, when we want it, and how we want it. And we get impatient when things
dont work out the way we think they should. This wound of original sin is so deep that we cant just
decide on our own to become more patient. We need the Holy Spirit to heal us, to help us trust God
with his plan and timing for our lives (even in the smallest of things) and to free us from the
selfishness that wants to put us in charge. The good news is that God really can do this in your life.

Sunday

Action: Spend some time praying over the verses below, letting the Lord remind you that you cannot
grow the fruit of patience by your own power, but through the Holy Spirit he can do it:
Not by might, and not by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord. (Zechariah 4:6)
I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit,
because without me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)
For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible. (Matthew 19:26)
In order for the fruit of patience to grow within us we need the Lord to do
two things: 1) Increase our humility so that we can let go of the idea that
we know best, that our plan is the only plan, that our expectations should always be met, etc. and 2)
Increase our faith, so that we really trust that he has a plan for us, even in the small things of life.
Lets begin by asking the Lord to give us humility. Humility reminds us that were not God, that our
expectations are not always realistic, that there are other ways of doing things, and that we cant
always accomplish or achieve the things we want. Humility gives me grace to accept sitting at a red
light, unable to make it green. And to accept a person that I cannot change.
Action: Spend a few minutes praying over these verses, asking the Holy Spirit to give you the
humility to acknowledge that you are not God. Its easier to be patient when we know and accept our
limitations.
You are dust, and to dust you shall return. (Genesis 3:19)
When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you set in place
what is man that you are mindful of him, and a son of man that you care for him? (Psalm 8:4-5)
Lord, let me know my end, the number of my days, that I may learn how frail I am. (Psalm 39:5)

Monday

Its easier to be patient when we humbly know our limitations, but

especially when the Lord promises that he will be at work in our
weaknesses and frailty. St. Paul learned this lesson after begging the Lord three times to remove a
struggle he was experiencing. The Lord didnt remove it and said to Paul, My grace is sufficient for
you, for power is made perfect in weakness. (2 Corinthians 12:9) The Lord was letting Paul know
that He could accomplish more when Paul was weak (and so had to rely on the Lord) than when Paul
was strong and relied on himself. The same is true for us. Its easier to be patient when we know the
Lord is working through our weaknesses.
Action: Pray over the verse above for a few minutes, asking the Holy Spirit to help you know how
true it is. And ask the Holy Spirit to help you accept your weaknesses, so that the fruit of patience
can grow.

Tuesday

Having asked the Lord for humility, today lets start asking the Lord to
help us trust him and grow in our faith, that whenever things go
differently than we envision or wish, we will still believe God is working all things for good. Its
easier to be patient when we believe that God is at work, even if our expectations and plans arent
going the way we wanted.

Wednesday

Action: Spend several minutes today praying and repeating the verse below so that the truth of it
begins to stick in your mind and heart, helping you to grow in your faith and trust of God:
We know that all things work for good for those who love God. (Romans 8:28)
Today lets keep asking the Lord to increase our faith. Faith is the
relentless trust, in all that we do and cannot do, that God is at work.
In our pride, we often trust ourselves more than God. So we need to pray for faith that helps us to a
surrender to his plan, his timing, his purpose, etc., in our lives.
Action: Spend several minutes today praying and repeating the verses below so that these truths
begin to stick in your mind and heart, helping you to grow in your trust of God:
For I know well the plans I have in mind for you plans for your welfare and not for woe,
so as to give you a future of hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)
I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it
until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:6)

Thursday

Its Friday. Need some motivation to keep praying for the fruit of patience?
How about this: think about how patient the Lord has been with you over
the years. Think about how patient he has been with your sins, your failures to love, in the times you
wandered. Why has he been so patient with you? Because he loves you. And love is patient.
Action: Spend some time praying over the verse below, letting it become a prayer of thanksgiving to
the Lord for his great patience with you. And ask the Holy Spirit to help you patiently love others
and yourself.
Love is patient. (1 Corinthians 13:4)

Its worth spending one more day thinking about how patient the Lord is
Saturday
with us, as a motivation to keep asking the Holy Spirit to grow the fruit of
patience within us. The more that we grow in patience, the more we become like God himself.
Action: Let this verse soak into your heart and mind today, so that even when it seems like the Lord
is delaying or has forgotten you, you might keep trusting and imitating his patience:
The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard delay, but he is patient with you,
not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)

Friday