ABIDE || September 19
The Patience of God — “makrothymia”
The world will spend all week telling you who you need to become. Every Saturday morning, we’ll remember who you already are in Christ. Friends, welcome back to Abide.
Patience is one of those sticky characteristics we would all like to display without actually having to endure any of the circumstances required to develop it. We also all tend to think we are a bit more patient than we are.
I personally would like to be more patient. I would also like people to understand what I meant the first time, walk faster on the sidewalk, and not spend an hour discussing something that could have been an email. Patience is certainly still being developed in me.
We tend to think of patience as simply staying calm and serene when things are slow or difficult — waiting without complaining, sitting in traffic without offering a running commentary on everyone else’s driving, allowing the person in front of us to finish their story even though we understood the point approximately four minutes ago…etc.
Those are absolutely opportunities to practice patience. But Scripture gives patience a depth that reaches well beyond our ability to endure minor inconvenience.
One of the Greek words translated as patience is makrothymia—μακροθυμία. It carries the sense of endurance, forbearance, and slowness to retaliate when wronged. Its word family combines makros, meaning long, with thymos, which can refer to passion or anger. A helpful picture is being long-tempered—having a “long fuse.” (Strong’s Greek 3115).
Most of us are quite familiar with being short-tempered and likely don’t need a word study to identify that one. But makrothymia describes the capacity to endure provocation without immediately answering it with anger. To bear with someone whose growth is slow. To encounter weakness, offense, or failure and remain deliberate in love.
There is a certain strength in that kind of restraint. Especially when we have already composed a wonderfully clear explanation of everything wrong with the person on the end of our short-fuse and would very much like to deliver that explanation to them.
Last week, we talked about the Holy Spirit — the presence of God within His people, producing the character of Christ in us. Patience belongs to that fruit (Galatians 5:22-23). And before we begin considering how much more of it everyone around us requires, we need to begin with the God whose character it reflects.
God is patient.
He does not have to learn it. He is not gradually developing it through repeated exposure to difficult people. He has never finished a conversation and needed to apologize for allowing His frustration to get the better of Him. God has never needed to take a walk, count to ten, collect Himself, and return to a conversation when He could be trusted to respond appropriately. His patience is perfectly consistent with His holiness, wisdom, justice, and love. Our patience can depend on how much sleep we got, how hungry (hangry) we are, or whether someone has asked us the same question seventeen times. His is steady because He is steady.
When God reveals His name to Moses, He describes Himself as “slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6, NIV). Consider when He says this — Israel has recently witnessed the plagues, walked through the sea, and received God’s provision in the wilderness. Then, while Moses is on the mountain, they make a golden calf and worship it. The God who delivered them takes longer than they prefer, and they replace Him with a cow. We might question their judgment, but we should probably first consider the things we reach for when God does not cooperate with our timeline…
Their rebellion brings real consequences, yet God continues His covenant relationship with His people. Throughout the Old Testament, this pattern repeats: His people wander, He confronts their sin, and He calls them to return. Prophet after prophet carries His warnings and invitations. 2 Chronicles 36:15 tells us that God repeatedly sent messengers because He had compassion on His people. His patience is deliberate mercy toward people whose sin He sees completely.
That is worth remembering when we begin imagining that God would be less patient with us if He knew the whole story. He already does! He knows the motive beneath the over-explanation, the pride beneath the defensiveness, and the disobedience beneath the thing we are still “praying about.” His patience has never depended on incomplete information. As He says through Isaiah, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9, NIV). Even our best efforts at patience cannot measure the fullness of His.
But His patience has a purpose. Paul asks,
“Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4, NIV).
God gives us time to turn toward Him. His kindness invites us to confess what we have defended and surrender what we have insisted on keeping. We misunderstand that kindness when we interpret the absence of immediate consequences as permission to continue. His patience should make us quicker to repent, deeply grateful that He is still calling us near.
Peter connects this same attribute to the promised return of Christ:
“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9, NIV).
What people mistake for slowness is God’s patience at work. The following verse still promises that the day of the Lord will come. His holiness has not diminished, and His judgment has not been forgotten. He remains faithful to everything He has said.
We see that holiness and mercy together at the cross. Jesus patiently taught disciples who repeatedly misunderstood Him, received sinners, and endured hostility. Ultimately, He bore insults without retaliation and entrusted Himself to His Father (1 Peter 2:23). Yet His death accomplished far more than providing an example of restraint. Romans 3:25–26 explains that the cross demonstrates God’s righteousness after His patient forbearance toward earlier sins. God had never overlooked evil. In Christ, He provided the atonement through which sinners could be forgiven. Our confidence in His mercy rests on the sufficient sacrifice of His Son.
That means I can bring my unfinished life honestly before Him. God’s patience toward me did not end when I became a Christian. He continues correcting, refining, and teaching me, fully aware of how much work remains. I occasionally seem surprised by that amount—He never is. Paul describes his own salvation as a display of Christ’s “immense patience” (1 Timothy 1:16, NIV), and I am grateful that the same Savior continues working in people who need much more than one explanation.
Receiving that patience should change how we live. We respond to His kindness with repentance, trust His timing, and extend mercy to people whose growth is still unfolding. Ephesians 4:2 calls us to bear with one another patiently in love — That includes the people whose weaknesses are inconvenient, familiar, and taking longer to resolve than we had hoped. We can address sin and speak truth while seeking restoration. Being correct about someone’s failure does not make every possible response to it righteous.
Last week, we considered the Holy Spirit’s work within us. Patience is part of the fruit He produces (Galatians 5:22–23). As we abide in Christ, the God who has shown us patience forms that same quality in us. We learn to listen before answering, correct with gentleness, and leave room for the work He is doing in someone else. Remembering how faithfully He has dealt with our own weaknesses should soften the way we respond to theirs. We are all considerably dependent on His mercy—even when someone else’s need for it seems more immediately obvious.
I am grateful that the God teaching us patience is patient with us as we learn. He knows how much remains unfinished, and He continues His work with perfect wisdom and faithful love. We can trust His pace, receive His correction, and respond when He calls us to repent. We can bring Him the same struggling heart without pretending it has made more progress than it has. His kindness gives us every reason to keep coming near. And as we remain with Him, the patience w have received begins to shape the love we give.
This Week’s Reflection
Read Exodus 34:4–7, Romans 2:1–5, 2 Peter 3:8–15, and Colossians 3:12–14.
Consider what these passages reveal about God’s character before considering what they ask of you. Where has He patiently corrected, pursued, or sustained you? Is there an area where you have enjoyed His kindness while postponing repentance?
Respond to Him there.
Then consider the person with whom you are least patient, remembering that you, too, are someone God is still changing. Ask His Spirit to help you speak truth with love and extend the patience you have so generously received.
Keep walking with Jesus, friends.
bytaylormcgee
