Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:4
Bob Salem holds the speed record for pushing a peanut up Pike’s Peak with his nose—or rather, with a spoon attached to his face. He accomplished the feat in seven days, working at night to avoid interruption from tourists. Bob is the fourth person to complete this stunt, which means three other very patient people have done it.
We might say their need for patience was self-inflicted, but so often in life that isn’t the case. We need patience. It’s a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22) and an essential virtue for becoming “mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:4). Patient people keep their heads when everyone around is in full panic. They’d like the situation to be different, but they don’t need it to be. They stay the course, trusting God for wisdom to act wisely (v. 5).
The problem with patience is there’s only one way to learn it. James says “the testing of your faith produces patience” (v. 3 nkjv). Such testing comes in ways big and small. I’m writing this from an airport. My 11:00 p.m. flight was delayed until 2:00 a.m., then canceled. After a night without sleep, I’m chugging coffee and hoping to make it home sometime. I don’t like wasting an entire, drowsy day in an airport, but my loving Father is teaching me patience.
I pray my lesson is finished for the day, but who knows? Time to check the standby list for the next flight.
How can you develop patience? Why is this virtue so important?
Father, please help me learn patience as I hold on to You and Your promises.
INSIGHT
The words perseverance (hypomonē, James 1:3-4) and perseveres (hypomenō, v. 12) relate to a compound Greek word which means to “remain under.” What’s in view is “patient endurance,” “steadfastness,” “perseverance.” In A New Testament Wordbook, William Barclay notes that hypomonē is “one of the noblest of NT words. . . . It is the quality which keeps a man on his feet with his face to the wind.” Job exemplified this kind of steadfast endurance (see James 5:11). From another word group are similar words rendered “be patient” (makrothymeō) (vv. 7-8) or “patience” (makrothymia) (v. 10). Church father John Chrysostom (ad 347-407) noted that this word describes the person “who is fully able to revenge himself but refuses to do so.”