Practicing Patience

I am not a patient person.

Never have been.

I have accepted the fact that I have been hard wired to be impatient. 

Anyone who knows me well enough knows this about me. I work on it and I do believe I have made some progress towards being a more patient person. But I'm a work on progress.

I recently revisited one of my favorite stories in the Bible the other day. It is commonly referred to as the “Parable of the Prodigal Son.” I now refer to it as the "Parable of the Patient Father."

So allow me to briefly summarize the story and then I want to share with you a new insight that I received from this parable.

A young man (probably in his late teens) asked his father for his inheritance in advance so he could step out and test the adventurous waters of life. 

Well the father relented without any apparent parental resistance. He gave the lad his inheritance and the boy parted ways with all that was familiar to him.

Well eventually the young lad fell upon hard times as the result of some really poor life decisions and suspicious behaviors. He found himself desperately alone and feeling as lonely as one can feel under such grave circumstances.

So he does the wisest thing he could do at this point in his life: He takes a good long look look inside himself. 

He determines that his personal failures were the result of his own doing (something narcissistic people are incapable of doing; they sooner blame others for their failures and bad behaviors rather than own any personal responsibility).

So the young man, having taken a personal inventory of his life, decides to return home to his father and throw himself at his mercy. 

Okay it is at this point in the story where I received new insight. 

Once the young man admitted to his own failures in life his first thought was to return to his father (and family). He did not hesitate for a second in formulating a plan to return home to the warm embrace of his father. 

Now I turn to the father:

Throughout the story the father is portrayed as perhaps one of the most patient people you will ever meet. 

But what if the father had impatiently resisted his son’s original request for an advance on his inheritance? What if he had reacted in a judgmental way by scolding the young man and by telling him he wasn’t ready for the big bad world?

What if a fight had ensued and the boy and his father parted ways on really bad terms? What if the father had said to the boy: 

“If you leave home son, don’t ever come back”?

What if?

I wonder if such an impatient response would have affected the son's willingness to return to his father?

Of course none of us want to hear those chilling words: “I told you so!” Do we?

But throughout the story the father displayed incredible patience, even in the face of his son’s reckless failures. Rather than acting in judgmental ways towards his son the father’s embrace revealed his unconditional love for his son. 

As a parent myself it is not easy being patient with your children. You want what is best for them but the truth is you don’t always know what is best for them. This is the part of the story that I resonate with the most as a parent myself.

But more importantly I now see a direct connection between impatience and our capacity for being judgmental of others. Impatience often leads to judgmental attitudes (new insight). I know from experience how true this can be for impatient people like myself.

So like the young lad who was the recipient of incredible parental patience, we too might discover the infinite patience of God towards us. For if God was anything other than patient towards us we would all be in deep trouble.

Now this doesn’t excuse us from bad behaviors or making poor decisions in life. Yes we all make such mistakes and missteps, but like the Prodigal Son we can return to our heavenly Father without the fear of being judged. He is always willing to warmly embrace us back into the family as it were,

So the new insight is this: Learning to be more patient with others also helps us to be less judgmental of others.

Maybe this is one of the lessons Jesus had in mind when he originally told this story.

[Rembrandt credited for the above picture]