Be Patient!!
Introduction
The song: “Have Patience”
A memory I have growing up: 6 people: 2 adults, 4 children, food, luggage, camping gear crammed into a vehicle. Stale air, pillows marking our personal space, endless impossibly flat prairie, “How much further?”, “Can’t we stop?” “Would you quit bugging me?” Aching legs and backside, only 7 more hours to Winnipeg. The tape in the stereo: The music machine Herbert the snail: Have patience, don’t be in such a hurry.
The Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary definition of the word “patient”: “bearing pains or trials calmly or without complaint.”
Some of us have a lot of patience. We haven’t used any for a long time!
Now imagine this: A turtle family going on a picnic. They have prepared seven years for this outing. The family leaves home, searching for a suitable place. During the second year of their journey, they find it. For about six months they clear the area, unpack the picnic basket, and complete the arrangement. 
They discover, however, that they have forgotten the salt. They all agree, a picnic without salt would be a disaster. After a lengthy discussion, the youngest turtle is chosen to retrieve the salt at home. Although he is the fastest of the slow-moving turtles, the little turtle whines, cries, and wobbles in his shell. He agrees to go on one condition: that no one would eat until he returned. The family consented and the little turtle left.
Three years passed, and the little turtle had not returned. Five years. Six years. Then in the seventh year of his absence, the eldest turtle could no longer contain his hunger. He announced that he was going to eat and began to unwrap a sandwich. At that point, the little turtle popped out from behind a tree shouting, "SEE! I knew that you wouldn’t wait! Now, I am not going to get the salt!"
That story makes my skin crawl.
A person with patience has the capacity to wait.
Have you noticed that Superstore has 20 check out lanes and they only have 3 open at any given time? How long does it take to warm up a meal in the microwave 2-3 minutes? There has got to be a quicker way of heating up a meal!! Restaurant chains have made millions not because they sell quality food but fast food. 
Brushing your teeth as you pass the semi on the freeway, watching television, reading, eating dinner and carrying on a conversation simultaneously. The line-up at the stop light, multiple lanes; which line will be the fastest, counting the cars, checking for makes and models, always avoid the lane with the gravel truck. The light flashes green and immediately horns are honking.
Generally speaking I would say that we are pretty patient people as long as we are not kept waiting for anything.
I want to ask you now to stand to your feet. Now I want to ask you to take off your watches and put them in your pockets. 
Cartoon: Read it.
Now I have 10 points to make on patience and I am going to speak very slowly so you will catch everything that I say.
Taking off your watches is an act of faith and if you do not dig for them to check the time throughout the duration of this sermon you have exerted the concentrated strength we call patience.
The concentrated strength we call patience will be possible for you only if you believe that I will finish on time. For you to be patient you are going to have to trust me.
This is the very basic and simple point I want to make this morning: hope and faith and patience are interconnected.
This of course comes from God’s Word.
Romans 8:25 “But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”
Hope brings the concentrated, determined strength to wait patiently.
Hebrews 6:12 “We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.”
Faith and patience are inseparable.
James 1:2-3 “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.”
I want us to be able to remember this simple truth and so I have this bow and some arrows. 
Get out the bow and arrow. Call up three kids. Take shots at target.
Give them something for participating.
Our lives are in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer.
God stretches and strains us, testing us, and we experience difficulty, road blocks, obstacles, a tree over the trail of obedience and all the while God is aiming at something we cannot see. 
We come to the point and we say, “I can’t stand anymore.” But God continues to stretch us and when His purposes are in sight He lets fly.
We must have faith in what God is doing, we must have our hope firmly place in Him or we will not have the patience to endure and then God’s purposes in our lives cannot be accomplished.
The large dent in the family van, a midnight phone call for help, the third glass of milk spilt on the floor, a book a pair of scissors and a guilty smile, addictions, immorality, rejection of Jesus Christ, You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.
A little skirmish over a long wait in the checkout lane, a major combat over a handicap or disease or circumstance that knocks out half of your dreams, 
When we go through difficult and trying experiences and circumstances in life that bring us right to ragged edge of our strength to endure as Charles Stanley writes the moment we realize that we could save ourselves pain or stress through some action that is not of God, we need patience, which is not an inborn trait.
In the times we are being stretched impatience will tempt us to take control of our lives and relieve the tension before God’s purposes are in sight. 
As John Piper writes “the unbelief of impatience tempts you in two directions, depending partly on your personality partly on circumstances:
On the one side, it tempts you to give up, bail out. If there's going to be frustration and opposition and difficulty, then I'll just forget it. I won't keep this job, or take this challenge, rear this child, or stay in this marriage, or live this life. 
On the other side, impatience tempts you to make rash counter moves against the obstacles in your way. It tempts you to be impetuous or hasty or impulsive or reckless. And we say, “Okay God I’ll stay in this place but I will go at my pace.” 
Psalm 37:7 “Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;”
Psalm 40:1 “I waited patiently for the LORD; He turned to me and heard my cry.”
Patience was the stuff Job was made of Job 13:15 “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him;”
One moment of patience may ward off great disaster. One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life.
Conclusion
To be patient we must remember God’s promises and not forget the warnings.
When we are tempted to be impatient we must preach to our souls. 
Remember what happened to Abraham when he became impatient and took matter into his own hands. Remember what happened to the Israelite nation when they went to Egypt for help instead of waiting for God for help, and then we say to our soul but remember what God promises to us if we will rest in Him and be quiet and trusting.
Isaiah 49:23 “…those who hope in me will not be disappointed."
Isaiah 64:4 “Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.”
Isaiah 40:31 “but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”
AMEN! You can put on your watches. You have exerted the concentrated strength called patience now reward yourself and take the slow lane home.