How to Patiently Wait on God Without Losing Hope

David Platt:
I think it’s surprising and kind of not surprising how prevalent patience is in so many different places in the Bible. I think, okay, fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience. So there’s a supernatural patience that flows from the Spirit. And then I start thinking, all right, where else do we see patience? That’s the first word that comes to Paul’s Spirit-inspired mind when he’s describing love. Of all the different words-

Austin Huang:
Oh, that’s good.

David Platt:
… love is, what comes to your mind? I don’t think of patience. So that’s why I mean, surprising, because it’s like, okay, I don’t think that’s the first word I would’ve thought of to describe love, but that’s the first word that the Spirit inspires Paul to describe love as in 1 Corinthians 13.
So then my mind goes to, okay. Wait. All the verses all over the Bible that also talk about waiting. Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. And oh man, just a book I would commend, a little book called Waiting on God by Andrew Murray. It’s so good. It’s like a devotional book. You read a chapter, which is like a page or two, and just soak it in and then wait till the next day. You don’t sit down and just read it through in an hour.
Yeah. You can kind of just walk through it slowly. But he goes through all these places where the Bible talks about waiting on God and basically builds a case that I think is pretty solid that the Christian life is waiting on God. And because wait… Well, what is involved in waiting? It’s trusting. Yeah. When you are waiting, you’re saying, “Okay. I am trusting.”
And in fact, so one other thought, then I want you to jump in here, but my mind’s going all these different places. Isaiah 40, I mentioned earlier, those who wait in the Lord shall renew their strength. You look at that word wait and, one, I remember I was studying it at one point, and one commentator said that word could be translated to rest trustfully. And bro, I’ve held onto that ever since.

Austin Huang:
Rest trustfully.

David Platt:
Rest trustfully. I can rest trustfully because I’m trusting in God. I don’t have to… Yeah. I can wait because he’s in control. So man, all these different pictures of patience and waiting in Scripture. So this fruit of the Spirit.

Austin Huang:
And it’s one that I think patience is one of those things that people like, “Oh, pray for me. I just need to be more patient.” I’m like, “You know if I pray for your patience, what does that mean? You have to practice that patience.” It’s just the thing of John Mark Comer, Ruthless Illumination of Hurry, going into a store and picking the line that is the longest just to practice that patience. And it’s just like you walk in, you’re like, “But there’s two people in this one, there’s 10 people in that one.” And that’s just an example of-

David Platt:
I’ve never done that, by the way.

Austin Huang:
I’ve-

David Platt:
Have you ever done that?

Austin Huang:
I’ve tried one time.

David Platt:
Did you?

Austin Huang:
And I was like, “I don’t want to do this.” But it’s true. God has a funny way of answering that prayer. I pray for patience and God’s like, “All right. Here you go. Here’s some traffic.” And I don’t know. I feel like that’s something that a lot of people misunderstand about this fruit specifically, is that if you think, I just want more patience, I just want to be a more patient person, that is just going to fall into your lap and I’m just going to be somehow so at peace and all patient all the time.
But God is saying, like you’re saying, wait on God. That’s a process.

David Platt:
Yeah.

Austin Huang:
I think waiting on God has been misinterpreted to be this like, I’m just going to sit in the corner and not do anything. But my mind immediately goes to Abraham when God tells him to go. He says, “Go and I shall show you the place that I’m going to take you.” It’s like that is a form of waiting on God that didn’t require him to just sit in one place, but rather to still take action and to step out in faith and to follow where God had him to go. And so I think he had to have patience in that. I think I was just in-

David Platt:
Patience in the context of obedience.

Austin Huang:
Exactly. Yeah.

David Platt:
It’s not passively sitting back, but actively walking with God, actively worshiping God, and actively waiting on God.

Austin Huang:
Yeah. And I also think of, I was just in Matthew 3 or Matthew 4 this morning, and it’s talking about Joseph and Mary and how they’re taking baby Jesus from here to there. And it’s just like Joseph’s had dream after dream. And it’s like, “No, don’t go there. You got to go here.” And I’m just thinking he had to have so much patience. And I don’t think we give Joseph enough credit in the story of the birth of Jesus.
The fact that, I don’t know if we talked about it, but the genealogy of Jesus includes Joseph and a trace. That’s a whole tangent. But all that to say, I think that, yes, there’s an active way to patiently wait on God that we don’t talk about.

David Platt:
Yeah. That’s really good.
Well, and I think it’s one of the… Because all right, we’re thinking about really different directions here, which are both part of the fruit of the Spirit: waiting on God. And so patience before God and patience with others.

Austin Huang:
Yeah.

David Platt:
But both of them really are learned, actively learned. I think that’s part of what, as you’re sharing, I think about you don’t learn patience if everything immediately comes to you exactly like you want.

Austin Huang:
Right.

David Platt:
You’re not going to learn patience that way. We actually learn patience through sometimes an agonizing process of waiting. Man, as we’re talking about this, I’m just thinking about… And maybe it would encourage everybody who’s listening to this: what are you waiting on? I mean, because I’ve got things I’m waiting on right now in my life, like longing for life, family in the world.
Man, even as I’m thinking about the list, it’s long. So it’s learned patience before God to… And that’s where I think about even the persistent widow, the parable of the persistent widow, when in Luke 18, Jesus says he taught them this parable so that they might keep on praying and not give up. So man, that’s an active picture of waiting, praying every day for this to happen.
And at the same time, trusting God with what you are praying for. Trusting his timing, trusting his wisdom, trusting his will ultimately. But that’s not sitting back, “Okay, I’m going to stop praying for this.” Which I’m tempted to do. I remember when we were walking through the adoption process with our son, JD, and it was three and a half years of waiting-

Austin Huang:
Wow.

David Platt:
… to be able to go bring him home. And I just think there were days that I regret in my faith when I was like, “What does it matter if I pray?” I don’t think I would’ve said that, but I was certainly thinking it. Especially when you pray, and you pray, and you think something’s about to happen and it doesn’t. And so it’s like, “Well, what would matter?” But to know, not one prayer, that’s what Jesus is telling us and what God tells us all the time.
Not one prayer before God is ever, ever, ever in vain. But you learn that through long-suffering, through waiting. And then similarly, that’s the way things work in our relationship with other people too. We don’t learn patience by everything always going great in relationships with others. Yeah. We’re patient with others, and we’ve got to learn that and learn to love that way.
And man, I just think along those lines, whenever I’m impatient with others, it really is a picture of pride in my life because God has been so patient with me.

Austin Huang:
Yeah.

David Platt:
He’s been like, “Whoa.” Yes. He’s so, so, so patient with me. And so with his Spirit in me, I need to be patient with others.

Austin Huang:
Yeah.

David Platt:
Yeah.

Austin Huang:
He is slow to anger. Yeah. I think about that all the time: if I get upset with somebody else for a minor thing, and how much more has God forgiven me, been patient with me. It’s not fair. It’s like my mind goes to the, I think it’s the parable of the guy who forgives the debt. You know what I’m talking about?

David Platt:
Yeah. Yeah. And then-

Austin Huang:
The king that forgives the really high debt.

David Platt:
… he turns around.

Austin Huang:
He turns around and says, “Well, you owe me this much out of whatever I owe the king.”
And hears about it. That’s an example of something else. But I mean, the patience that God has for sinners like us who have daily need of repentance before him, why don’t we live with that grace in mind for other people?

David Platt:
Yeah.

Austin Huang:
But even as I’m thinking about that, I’m just like, “Why don’t I live with that grace in mind for other people who wrong me in ways that are so minuscule compared to what I have done to the Creator of the universe?” I just think my mind, I love Hebrews 12, “but therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely. Let us run with endurance, the race set before us.”
Let us run with endurance, with patience, with waiting on God, the race that is set before us. As you said, we want this quick fix. That’s what social media is training us to do. That’s what everything in life is training us to do, to receive as soon as we put something in. But the Lord is saying, “This is a race. The Christian life is a race. And I’m going to run with you, and I’m going to be with you, and I’m going to cheer you on along the way, but this is a race that you are called to endure and to be patient.”

David Platt:
Man, so two thoughts there. One, endurance because, okay, my mind immediately goes to Revelation one, and it’s multiple times in Revelation. The phrase patient endurance. John says, “I write to you…” Here he is, exiled on an island. “I write to you as your brother, your partner in the tribulation and the patient endurance that are in Jesus.”
This is the Christian life. It’s many things. It’s many things. It’s joyful always. It’s all the fruit of the Spirit. So love, joy, peace, and patience, which means, yeah, the Christian life is patient endurance through a fallen world, through a world of sin, through a world of sorrow, suffering, death. It’s holding on as he’s holding on to us and enduring patiently.
I think that’s part of the point of the Book of Revelation. It’s not just to get us pulling out charts and debating the end times. It’s intended to say Jesus wins. God wins. In the end, hold on then. Hold on. You’re in the fight, but just hold on. Like you’re in the marathon, you’re at mile whatever. Only God knows what mile you’re at specifically. And so just hold on. But then that’s the second thing.
It’s not even just hold on; do your best. It’s I’m in you. That’s the whole point of the fruit of the Spirit.

Austin Huang:
Yeah.

David Platt:
This is where I keep thinking about it as we’re talking about the fruit of the Spirit. We have a supernatural reservoir inside us of supernatural patience. We have the same patience as God. We’ve talked about how he’s so patient with us. We have that patience inside of us. His Holy Spirit dwells in our bodies. We’re temples. So we’ve got supernatural patience available to us.
The prayer really is, God, help me to live today in the reservoir of resources you’ve given to me in the fullness of your Holy Spirit, which means patience. Patience before you. I have supernatural. You’re not just telling me to be patient; you’re giving me power to be patient before you. And you’re not just telling me to be patient with these other people at work or at home or whatever it might be.

Austin Huang:
Yeah.

David Platt:
You’re giving me everything I need to be otherworldly patient with them.

Austin Huang:
That’s so good.

David Platt:
And so to live in this, this is the fight against the flesh, again, Galatians 5, to live in the power, in the fruit of the Spirit, which is patience.

Austin Huang:
That’s so good, David. What are some more practical ways that someone can take after this episode? I think, one, we sat down with Andy Davis the other day, and Scripture memorization is probably a great way to learn patience. What are some other spiritual practices that we can take?

David Platt:
Yeah. And I would, again, go back to that Andrew Murray Waiting on God book is so good. And so then there’s just all kinds of verses. So memorize verses on Waiting on God. Yeah. Memorize verses on patience, for sure. That’s always… How do we keep our way pure? By living according to your Word. Just meditating on his Word day and night.
I would say other. So second, just actively pray for patience. God, help me. And to pause and confess, repent of impatience.

Austin Huang:
Yeah.

David Platt:
So man, that’s a good exercise for us to do. And maybe as a follow-up, just right now after listening to this, but just to pause and say, “Is there any way I’m being impatient before God? Is there any impatience in my heart before God? Or is there any impatience in my heart toward others?”
And to repent of that, to repent of that before God, to repent of that before others? Is there anybody we need to go to? And just say, “Hey, I have not been patient with you, and please forgive me.” So to confess impatience, to pray for patience, to actively pray for it. And then to recognize, I think this is where… For me, journaling is so helpful every morning because it gives me an opportunity to look at, reflect on what happened the day before, what’s happening today, and just see, are there any ways God is teaching me patience right now that I need to learn?
In the middle of just to ask, amidst struggles, where do I need to grow in patience? And to really internalize that question and then let that, of course, lead you to pray for patience. So a lot of that is just heart work that needs to be done. And maybe one other thing, maybe one other thing would be to, in relationships with people around us, to ask, “Do you see impatience in me in any way?”
Just for God to use others in our lives who love us to open our eyes to impatience. I am just thinking, ask your spouse, your kids, your parents, your friends, just other brothers and sisters in Christ, or I mean, you really might shock a non-believer and be like, “Hey, do you see any impatience in me? I really want to grow in this.” But to look to others because sometimes we don’t see the impatience.

Austin Huang:
Yeah.

David Platt:
And if brothers and sisters of Christ really know us, they might help us see impatience, not just before others, but impatience before God in us.

Austin Huang:
Yeah. Oh, that’s so good. As you were sharing that, I just thought back to what you shared in 1 Corinthians 13. Love is patient. And I just made the connection. We are talking about all the fruit of the Spirit, and it’s so evident in Scripture how connected these fruits are.

David Platt:
Yeah. That’s good. That’s good.

Austin Huang:
I would love to just pray us out in closing that we would have the patience of God.

David Platt:
That is so-

Austin Huang:
So Father God, I just thank you for this episode on patience. Lord, I repent of any ways, any areas in my life where I have been impatient, especially when, as you say, you loved us first. You are patient with us first.

David Platt:
Thank God.

Austin Huang:
So Father, I just thank you for your patience. Would the Holy Spirit in all of us, God, would you, Holy Spirit, would you bring out this patience, this supernatural patience that when we feel like we need to be in a rush and always on the move and always on the go and always receiving and always doing, would you sit us down to know that it is okay to be still and know that you are God, that you’ll be exalted among the nations?
God, I pray for patience, whoever is listening, that they would be able to practice it, that they would go to Scripture and memorize words in which you have called us to be patient. God, I pray that we would be patient with our spouses, with our friends, with our parents. The people that are hard to be patient around, would you show yourself in your glory through the patience that we get to show, to put on display, that it would glorify you and not us?
God, will we be patient Christians who run this race with endurance, laying aside every burden and every sin? And will we seek you? Will we gaze upon you, the beauty of your face? Would we inquire of you in your temple? Because you say better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.
So Father, would we rest with patience in your courts daily because it is good. Even one second is better than a thousand elsewhere in your courts. Lord, will we just have patience that helps us grow in the fruit of the Spirit and the knowledge of your Son. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

David Platt:
Amen. And bro, as you’re praying, that was such a good word. I needed that. I mean, you’re praying to the Lord, but just what he did in my own heart and just encouragement to wait patiently in time with the Lord.
Psalm 27, as you were quoting that, to not be rushed, to really make sure there’s a place in our lives for just patient sitting before God, listening to God instead of rushing through that time with God, just being with him. That be still as you were saying that. Psalm 46, I was like, “Oh yeah. I want to live in that stillness.”

Austin Huang:
Yes.

David Platt:
And I’m so thankful he is God. And just to let that soak in and bring all that’s going on in my life just under that reality. So yeah, God help us to be patient just in time. This is him. Amen.

Austin Huang:
Thank you so much for watching this episode of Everyday Radical. We pray that it encouraged you to follow Jesus more faithfully and make him known everywhere. Be sure to hit that like and subscribe button, and we’ll see you in the next one.