Sermon Text: Matthew 13:24-30
Sermon Excerpt
Summer is almost here. It is a magical time for children – a time without school and a time for family vacations. All of us who have traveled with children know to expect four very important words with some regularity during any trip: Are we there yet?
We expect impatience with children for whom the joy isn’t in the journey, but the destination. But, what about ourselves? Are you anything like me when it comes to struggling with patience?
Maybe we should not be too hard on ourselves. After all, we live in a culture that promotes impatience and demands that everything continue to move at faster and faster speeds.
Why else would it be normal to eat fast food, surf the web on high speed internet connections, receive packages sent by express mail, and even carry phones on our person wherever we go?
Perhaps, like children, we need a seasonal reminder to slow down. Summer obliges.
For many annual residents of Southwest Florida this change of pace comes when the traffic on the roads fades away and reservations are no longer needed at restaurants. Elsewhere the change of pace comes through the distinctly American sport of baseball – a game that is measured in innings rather than by time. The other major American sports – football, soccer, basketball and hockey – are all constrained by a clock designed to measure the exact time allotted for a given athletic contest.
Patience isn’t supposed to be limited to the summer months, but they certainly offer us a good opportunity to renew our focus on this discipline. Maybe you know someone who has the patience of Job? Or maybe the prayer you would fashion on the topic starts like that of one by the Methodist minister Ted Loder:
I’m impatient, Lord,
and it drives me crazy,
to say nothing of those around me.
But you don’t seem to have deadlines, God.
Who would set them, after all?
You have eternity.
I don’t!
So, forgive me . . .(read the full manuscript)
So What?
Learning to be patient takes time, and is increasingly challenging in a culture of instant gratification. Patience is not necessarily about inaction, but is always about perspective.
- On a scale of 1 to 10, how patient a person do you think you are at this stage in life? Over the last 5-10 years has that number increased or decreased?
- What do you find most challenging about being patient?
- Share one piece of advice you have found helpful regarding living as a patient person.