Patience: How Love Waits
The Heart of Waiting Is Presence
Patience Has a Bad Reputation
Patience is often framed as something we endure — a discomfort we tolerate until something better finally happens. We hear, “Just be patient,” and it almost sounds like delay.
But Scripture speaks of it differently.
Paul names patience as part of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22), and then he tells us plainly, “Love is patient” (1 Corinthians 13:4).
Patience is not weakness. It is how love waits.
Patience Is Presence in the Now
Patience is less about what eventually happens and more about Who we are with while we wait.
To be patient is to remain present — not racing ahead in anxiety, not withdrawing in frustration — but allowing Abba to set the pace while trust fills the space in between.
Patience quietly says, “God is good here.”
Not only there.
Here.
And when we begin to live that way, something softens.
We realize that what God is forming in us now may be just as sacred as whatever we are hoping will unfold later.
The Reward Is Not Only Later
We often assume patience is about earning a future reward. But love does not live only in anticipation.
The reward of patience is communion now — the steady joy of Father, Son, and Spirit in this moment.
Waiting with Him becomes a posture of humility:
A dance with the Trinity.
A deepening of trust.
A softening of fear.
Patience is not suspended life. It is shared life.
Why Love Waits This Way
Love does not grasp. Love does not panic when the future is unclear.
Patience rests in the character of God. It trusts that if something unfolds, it will unfold in love. And if it doesn’t unfold the way we imagined, His goodness has not changed.
You are not merely waiting for something to happen.
You are living with Someone who is already present.
Reflection
Where am I resisting the present moment because I am focused only on the outcome?
What would it look like to see patience as communion rather than delay?
How might trusting Abba’s pace reshape the way I wait today?
Prayer