Supernatural Living - Patience

The modern world is constantly moving towards instant gratification through technologies like microwaves, air fryers and online shopping.  This is leading to an increase in impatience.  Rather God wants us to grow the fruit of Patience in our lives as we walk in step with the Holy Spirit.

Transcript

"I'm Dami and I'm here to talk to you today about patience now you may look at me and think wow this woman I can tell she has an aura of patience around her she's actually just the epitome of patience and now I'm telling you now although I look like it that is not true okay and actually I am the most impatient person I know I actually like to think of myself more as a provider of patience to other people so I provide them opportunities to demonstrate patience okay and so my lovely family has sat over here and I'm sure there's many times where I've again been so kind to them and blessed them with the opportunity to be patient with me I even have a story for you and it's actually a time where we were renovating our house and through these renovational parents like yeah we're gonna get fresh carpet okay we're gonna put somebody so we're going to paint the walls we're going to get brand new Fresh carpet nice black and you know that feeling of Fresh carpet is soft it's spongy it's cushiony it's right and so my brother being my little brother you know was just being his little brothers do and I was coming in from the Caribou just coming back from B and Q and I had a five liter you can tell where this is going five liter can of paint in my hand and my little brother and I we were just arguing and so I thought I'm gonna make him jump let me just throw I know as I say it does make any sense but let me just you know kind of throw the paint towards him to make him jump he steps back and it feels like it was a movie this moment you know I throw it shot one he steps back shot two shot two and the paint splat everywhere and then shot three is my mum coming down the steps to see that this freshly laid carpet that had only literally been laid for two hours had now five liters of white paint all over it parents of deaf and even patient with me that is for sure and I feel like we live in a day and age that enables patients and increases our desire of instant gratification we have the invention of the oven it was like wow you can have your food hot and crispy and the microwaves came in and said we can do you one better it can be warmer quicker in minutes and now we have air fryers that are like do you know what you get the crisp of the oven and the speed of almost microwave you know we're always living in a dynamic of just face fast-paced fast ways you've got Amazon Prime at Asos next day delivery fad diets instead instead of you know meeting your friends you can actually just meet on FaceTime but we don't even have to leave our house we're saving on commute we're saving on petrol this is perfect but it is slowly and steadily small little trinkets of impatience and I think it's clear that I'm probably not the only one who struggles with impatience so I have a question for the room it's just a simple would you rather and so I'm asking would you rather pay more and get something faster or pay less and have to wait longer okay so if you are pay more and you get it faster put your hand up for me yeah you guys are my kind of people yeah and if you guys are someone you pay less and actually wait for it to come wow you'll be first in heaven I'm sure for sure for sure and so it's clear I'm not the only one who struggles with patience so I then think well why is patience a fruit of the spirit so if we look at the definition of patience it says the capacity to accept or tolerate delay problems or suffering without being annoyed or anxious that is not me and I'm not really an anxious person but whatever I lack in anxiety I more than make up for in annoyance I do not tolerate any sort of delays if I'm sat for dinner and the people that come after us have got their food before me explosion okay I am not happy and so this definition really shook me to my core because I was like wow I am genuinely the most impatient person I know and so ultimately these things may seem minor but there is this a subconscious effect of daily import impatience in our lives and an attitude of instant gratification and instant pleasure now when I look at the example of Jesus I can't think of a time where he's impatient where he's rushing and for example The Story of Lazarus right if I was a disciple the thought of that just makes me laugh if I was a disciple and I was saying right God you know Jesus we need to get to Lazarus he's really ill he's about to die and Jesus is like yeah yeah we'll get there I'd be like come on he's about to die you know rushing him trying to get him there but actually through the story when Jesus turned up in his perfect timing we sure we saw the escalation of a miracle you know from him healing someone who was sick to bring in someone from the dead like that's inarguable and we just see how the sovereignty of Jesus in that moment and also how patient Jesus was with his disciples in Matthew 8 just in that chapter alone Jesus heals a paralyzed man he heals Peter's mother-in-law he's casting out demons and even still the disciples and Jesus they go onto a bow and there's a storm and the disciples completely forget who Jesus is and they panicked they completely forget how incredible how many miracles he's literally done in front of their eyes and yet they still completely forget and God is patient with them he's patient in their ignorance and it just shows that God is endlessly patient with us so we should be patient to others now I believe patient teaches us sustenance to be able to walk in our daily walk with Christ I believe patience teaches us resilience and endurance knowing that we're gonna have hard times but God will see us through those hard times I believe patience helps us to grow it stretches us but it also shows that we can handle it and I also feel that patience gives us fulfilment to be satisfied in God's purpose in our lives when we demonstrate patients we're practicing the r of growing in our faith being resilient to the world and the enemy and his attacks and being fulfilled in God's purpose so a lot of you guys might have patience that kind of represents this elastic band you know it stretches but it has it look it has its limits okay but it's like this my patients just so you have a visual representation is like this okay it's tiny she can't endure much I'm a delicate soul but ultimately both of these elastic bands have limits and have stretches and they have to be under tension now God never promises us that we're not going to have a difficult time that he's not going to stretch us but what he does promise US is that we'll be able to withhold the situation that will be and be we will be able to be patient enough to be seen through the situation through the situation God has equipped us to handle anything and we just have to be patient to see it through now in James 1 verse three to four it says consider it all joy my brothers and sisters when you encounter various trials knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance and let endurance have its perfect result so that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing there's one story that comes to mind and helps me think of patients and that is in 1 King 17 and it's Elijah and the brook now I kind of like to sometimes read the Bible as if I've got my own interpretation and if I did have my own attempt it should be the SAS interpretation okay it'd be the SAS version because I think there's just those moments where you kind of want to sprinkle a little bit of attitude you know so with Elijah and the brook obviously God has said to Elijah there's going to be a drought there's going to be a famine so I want you to go to this place in Jordan and you're going to go there and you're going to drink from a brook and you're going to be fed through the mouth of a raven now my elastic band would have snapped then and there I would have went God would you mean there's a drought and a family you want me to drink from a dirty Brook and be fed from the mouth of a raven do you know how gross Ravens can be like I God please I can't but Elijah was patient and he followed God's command and he went there and then after that God then said right now this brick has dried up I'm gonna tell you to go to another place Zaraphath which is a thousand miles away obvious see there was no CIB for them and so you know the best donkeys might have all been taken and so to get there a thousand miles no food no promise of food or water but again Elijah was patient with God and went went there and now my patients or my lack thereof Knows No Boundaries okay I can actually be quite empathetically patient towards other empathetically impatient towards other people's situations so hearing that when Elijah got to Zaraphath and he heard saw the Widow I'm putting my impatience in the Widow and so she's not got enough food for her and her son they are skint there is nothing going on and actually some man says to her hey would you mind getting me some water while she's already fetching some sticks that was me I'm looking at him like can you not see I'm busy like I have things to be doing right now but again she goes to go she leans away to go and get water and then this man asked her Elijah can you also make me some bread now if I was there in that moment I think we can all tell that I would have been like excuse me sir there's a famine right now like I can't help you you know I'm trying to survive for myself but she responded and she said hey this is all I have and literally this is so little that I'm taking this home for me and my son to eat and then for us to prepare to die because that is how close we are to starvation and Elijah goes back to her and says sorry I get my knives for thus says the Lord the god of Israel the jar of flowers shall not be spent the jug of oil shall not be empty until the day that the Lord sends the rain upon the Earth the story tells us that she cooks for Elijah and that with what she had and from then God's promise to her was fulfilled through her whole household having food continuously Justice was promised now I feel that God doesn't give us a difficult situation or asked difficult things of us for no reason it is always for our benefit and ultimately for his glory we may not be Elijah or the Widow but there will be times where we are stretched to the limits on the brink of starvation but still God will come through and deliver we just have to be patient and sometimes I think impatience can rob us of the chance to bless others if the woman if the Widow had acted a patient he said you know what I haven't even got time to talk to you she would have missed God's blessing right then and there and so we have to be mindful of impatience in our lives and we have to see the opportunities to just slow down and bless others invest in them and allow the Holy Spirit to work through us I feel that we can be Servants of Christ that sometimes are rushing sometimes we're trying to get to the next stage but actually God never rushes with us so we could at least just intentionally think hey do you know what I'm here at church today instead of being in and out of those doors let me just speak to someone God Minister through me if there's someone you want me to pray for let me just speak to them I think also when you go out to dinner for example with your family and the servant comes and they're rushing you and you it Alters your experience whereas if there's someone that's coming that's attentive that's got all the time in the world for you that is patient with you you feel comfortable you feel rested and that's what we as Christians should be doing to others now I often Kid myself that as a Christian I'll have some hard times but I think that I'll get them is get through them as quickly as possible and I feel like I'll get through them with ease but actually patience isn't synonymous with Clarity we're sometimes going to be in difficult situations and we're not going to understand why we're there we don't understand why God is putting us in that situation but God wants us to still be patient even when we don't understand and it might be because we've not finished learning what he wants to teach us it might be because we haven't fully submitted the topic to him so we still need to be there completely reliant on God so thank you so much for listening to my talk today about patience