God's Patience

People say ‘when the going gets tough, the tough gets going’. Patience is often misunderstood as something passive, since it demands the time and energy in waiting. Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting; that is laziness, but to keep going when the going gets tough and slow. All human patience has limits: we break our promises, relationships, rules and regulations and even spiritual searches lose their meaning once patience is gone. As St. Augustine says, ‘Patience is the companion of wisdom’, we lose wisdom when we lose patience.

Patience of God is one of the Divine attributes or qualities. Though some great minds compare it with the wisdom or power or holiness of God, far less has been written on this particular topic. Often in the Old Testament, the patience of God is referred to as God who is slow to anger, (Neh 9:17, Ps 103:8). Though the bible does not directly talk much about the patience of God, we could feel it throughout the scriptures. The patience of God is seen as a display of his mercy. Ps 145:8 reads, ‘the Lord is full of compassion, slow to anger’. A theologian Arthur Pink distinguishes Mercy and patience. Mercy respects the creature as miserable, patience respects the creature as criminal; mercy pities him in his misery, patience bears with the sin which engendered the misery.

Along with the unconditional love of God, what we see in God the father, Son and Holy Spirit is the enormous and a deep sense of patience for the sinning people. Israel as a nation is a symbol of sinning people of the world witnessed the patience of God from the way He loved them: as a mother, as a father, as a King. God’s patience reaches its climax in Jesus Christ’s incarnation, life and suffering and death.

Today’s Gospel talks about the owner being patient with the fig tree. Our sins of the past have deleted the fruits of our faith and our Christian commitment. God is still waiting in hope that we will take deep roots and be nourished by care given to us by the orchard-keeper: ‘I leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it’. What are some of things that we can bring forth as fruits that can be given to God? What are the ways I can imitate the patience of God? Amen.