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Have you ever become impatient waiting on God to act to help you in a situation? Perhaps you have struggled in school, and prayed that God would help you with your studies. Perhaps a friend or a family member has been sick, and you’ve become discouraged when, despite your prayers, that person did not get well.

God tells us, through the Holy Prophet Isaiah, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 50:9). Despite this admonition, we frequently question God’s timetable: if we are suffering, then we demand that God end the suffering immediately; if we are engaging in a certain work, we demand that He provide a specific result within a specific period of time. If God does not meet our demands, we begin to question and doubt Him.

Holy Scripture contains many examples of individuals who become impatient with God’s timetable. While Abraham was a man of great faith who was blessed by God, not only with a physical son but with countless spiritual descendents (Romans 4:19-21), Abraham and Sarah nonetheless became impatient waiting for their promised heir; their impatience resulted in the birth of Ishmael, whose descendents were bitter enemies of the Israelites. King Saul became impatient with God’s leadership and consulted a witch for guidance; in the subsequent battle Saul and his sons were killed.

In contrast to these individuals, King David patiently worked according to God’s timetable. David passed several opportunities to ignore God’s timetable and claim the throne of Israel by killing God’s anointed king, Saul. David could honestly say, “I waited patiently for the LORD; and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps” (Psalm 40:1-2).

St. James gives several examples of waiting patiently. He notes that a farmer must wait patiently for his crops to yield their fruit (James 5:7); that many of the prophets suffered and died before their prophecies were fulfilled (vs. 10); and that Job suffered patiently (vs. 11).

St. Gregory the Great, bishop of Rome from 590-604 AD, teaches us that our patience affects our souls:

For victory over cities is a less thing, because that which is subdued is without; but a far greater thing is that which is conquered by patience, since the mind itself is by itself overcome, and subjects itself to itself, when patience compels it to bridle itself within. Let the impatient hear what the Truth says to His elect; In your patience ye shall possess your souls (Luke 21:19). For we are so wonderfully made that reason possesses the soul, and the soul the body. But the soul is ousted from its right of possession of the body, if it is not first possessed by reason. Therefore the Lord pointed out patience as the guardian of our state, in that He taught us to possess ourselves in it. Thus we learn how great is the sin of impatience, through which we lose the very possession of what we are.

St. Paul concludes, “We desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Hebrews 6:11-12).