0
0
Striking a Balance Between Urgency and Patience
“Around here, it’s hurry up and wait”—a frustration frequently uttered by adults when I was a kid, usually in the context of getting everything together to get something you want or need and then having to wait to finally get it.
Advice has never been more readily available than it is now. With the proliferation of social media, everyone has a platform, and we each use it to tell everybody else what to think, how to feel, how to act, when to act, where to go, and how to get there.
Everybody is telling everybody everything and nobody’s listening.
We might have predicted there would be contradictory messaging as a result.
When it comes to urgency or patience, the conflicting messaging predates the Internet and Social Media—it goes back decades, centuries, even millennia.
The Call to Urgency
We have famous axioms like, “He who hesitates is lost,” a sentiment that dates back at least as far as Joseph Addison’s play, Cato, which was released in 1712, more than 60 years before America was born.
I was never in the United States Marines, but my first position as a professional minister was as the assistant to a Marine-turned-Baptist minister. He loved to say, “Do something, even if it’s wrong.”
He bought into the military adage, “If it moves, salute it. If it doesn’t move, paint it.” This was the mantra meant to keep enlisted men busy at all times, even if it appeared there was nothing to do.
I did a lot of painting that year. A lot.
Of all the quotable presidents in American history (and they were not all quotable), Theodore Roosevelt was perhaps the one most committed to action. He famously said, “In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing”.
“In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” –Theodore Roosevelt
The Call to Patience
Then we have the other axiom that says, “Good things come to those who wait.” This quote dates back to author Violet Fane in 1892—or at least that far.
“Patience is a virtue,” we are told. This one is traced back to a 5th Century poem. It fueled a popular old school rhyme…
“Patience is a virtue, Possess it if you can, Seldom found in woman, Never found in man.”
Benjamin Franklin, one of history’s most quotable thinkers, said, “He who can have patience can have what he will.”
“He who can have patience can have what he will.” –Benjamin Franklin
Aristotle said, “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”
So we have this modern war of Memes and a historic clash of philosophical titans. One side urges urgency. The other demands patience.
Which is right?
Can we go to the Bible and settle it?
What the Bible says about urgency
Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. –Ephesians 5:15,16
The time is short. The days are full of evil influences. Be careful how you go but get on with it.
While it is daytime, we must do the works of Him who sent Me. Night is coming, when no one can work. –John 9:4
This is Jesus saying there is no time to waste.
So teach us to number our days,
that we may present a heart of wisdom. –Psalm 90:12
King David writes that it is good to keep up with your time and use it wisely.
Solomon, David’s boy, renowned for his wisdom, agrees with his old man.
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might,
for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in the grave,
to which you are going. –Ecclesiastes 9:10
The Bible has plenty to say about urgency and powerful voices, to boot, with Jesus, Paul, David, and Solomon weighing in.
What the Bible says about patience
Well, Solomon pops up again…
Better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city. –Proverbs 16:32 (NIV)
So much for the Marines doing something even if it’s wrong!
And if you think Paul wrote the book of Hebrews, and I do, then here he is…
And so Abraham, after waiting patiently, obtained the promise. –Hebrews 6:15
Then, Paul again…
Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. –Romans 5:3,4
These Bible writers are all over the road here! On the one hand, they preach urgency and on the other, they tout patience.
Which is it???
Well, both. But don’t get them mixed up. Nothing spells disaster like urgency when you need patience or patience when you ought to be urgent.
Donya and I have gotten even on this matter. Early in our marriage, when she was well into her first pregnancy, we had a couple of false alarms. So, in the wee morning hours of May 8, 1981, when she woke me and said it was time, I was not in a terrible hurry to get dressed and drive her the 20 minutes or so to the hospital. Turned out, she was having that baby and came dangerously close to doing so in the car. I was too patient in that hour of urgency.
Fast-forward to July 4, 2022. I had been complaining for days of chest pains. Each time, I waited them out and they subsided, so I figured it must be something besides my heart because, you know, I am a doctor and all. But on that morning, while she was getting ready for the day, I was telling her maybe we better go to the emergency room. She kept a steady pace but did not pick it up any. I finally told her, “I’ve got to now!”
Turned out, I was having a heart attack. The time for patience was over. It was hurry up or die.
So, let’s talk about when to be urgent and when to be patient.
Urgency in the Effort
When you are in the doing phase of a thing, plan what you must, prepare as well as possible, but do something! Get the lead out. Don’t suffer paralysis by analysis. Some things are marathons and others are sprints. A marathoner needs patience. A sprinter needs urgency. Learn the difference.
Jesse Owens didn’t upset Hitler by getting out of the gate slowly. Steve Jobs disrupted the business world with his impatient approach. He didn’t wait until everything was perfect to move. While others planned and tested, he produced and implemented.
As a believer, you are urged to urgency by Jesus Christ Himself. He told us to do the work of the Father while it’s daylight. Night is coming. Don’t delay to follow Him. Don’t delay to tell the good news. Don’t delay to lift the fallen, to support the weak, to love the unlovely.
Go that extra mile. Give that extra dollar.
Let me give you a personal illustration. The other day, I was coming home from a conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was after the lunch hour and I was hungry, so I Googled and found a burger place in Okmulgee that everyone raved about in their reviews. I headed there for a burger and onion rings, and they were as advertised.
Seated at a table near mine was a girl who could not be out of her teens. She had a toddler with her. I heard her tell the waitress the little fellow was two. That blew me away because I figured the mom for 18, tops. In came her husband in work clothes, and he looked every bit as youthful as she. They ordered and talked in hushed tones and I remembered being an 18-year-old husband and then a 19-year-old father. I remembered scrounging for every dime, looking under car seats and sofa cushions for change to buy bread or milk. I looked around that beaten-down town where more people than not lived on or near the poverty level, and someone spoke to me. It was not audible. But it was urgent. I couldn’t change their circumstance. But I could buy their lunch. So, when I checked out, I told the waitress to put their meal on my ticket and I paid it and left.
I felt good about meeting that impression, what I felt was a holy nudge, with urgency and determination. I remembered those who did the same for me.
Whatever God puts in your hands, use. Whatever He puts in your spirit, obey. Whatever He lays on your heart, follow.
Whatever God puts in your hands, use. Whatever He puts in your spirit, obey. Whatever He lays on your heart, follow. –Preacher
Do it imperfectly. Do it even if you feel unprepared or underqualified. Just do it. Do it now.
There needs to be urgency in the effort. Losers delay. They are left behind with a fistful of what-if.
So where is patience in the equation?
Patience in the Payoff
Let me share some vital Scriptures to answer that question…
Psalm 37:7 (NIV): “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.”
Proverbs 14:29 (NIV): “Whoever is patient has great understanding, but one who is quick-tempered displays folly.”
James 5:7-8 (NLT): “Dear brothers and sisters, be patient as you wait for the Lord’s return. Consider the farmers who patiently wait for the rains… You, too, must be patient. Take courage, for the coming of the Lord is near.”
Romans 12:12 (NIV): “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”—
May we park here a while? I am too much of a preacher to miss truths that come in threes!
Joyful in hope! The hope that is in Christ is not the same as hoping you win the lottery or crossing your fingers; it is hope because it will happen, but not just yet.
Patient in affliction. The hardest time to be patient is when you are afflicted. Affliction is “a state of pain, distress, misery, or grief.” When your health goes south, when your loved one passes, or when others inflict distress or misery on you by their words or actions, it is hard to be patient. It is also essential to good mental and spiritual health. Patience is most needed where it is in short supply.
Faithful in prayer. This is not a now I lay me down to sleep or a “Good food, good meat, Good Lord, let’s eat” prayer before dinner. This is a commitment to prayer, fervent, earnest, insistent prayer.
Psalm 27:14 (NIV): “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”—Look at that. Wait for the Lord. So nice he said it twice.
Galatians 6:9 (ESV): “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”
Proverbs 16:32 (NIV): “Better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city.”
Romans 5:3-4 (NIV): “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”—Look at that! Right back to hope.
That is as good a place as any to wrap up this sermon, a place of urgent effort and patient hope.
As with sermon one, I will let the Apostle Paul have the last word here. He speaks for me…
I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. –Romans 15:13
My name is Gene. Some call me Preacher. And this is Sunday School. Tune in next week for the most personal of these seven sermons—one titled, The Pianist.
