Running out of patience?

“I’ve run out of patience.” Maybe you hear or say that sometimes.

When I’m feeling impatient, I often find it helpful to think of this verse from the Bible: “Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing” (James 1:4). This reorients one’s perspective on patience, elevating it from a finite personal quality that can be used up and run dry to something deeper and more powerful.

Indeed, my study and practice of Christian Science has helped me realize that true patience is not human passivity but an active quality of God. Thus it is infinite like the Divine, ever accessible to be reflected and expressed – in ways that heal.

I learned something about this a little while back. I was working for a large organization that required periodic fitness exams. I had completed the test with a good score, but a few weeks later I was notified that there was no record of my having met the requirement and that I would need to retake the exam. I recalled receiving a certificate of completion after the test, but couldn’t locate it.

The whole situation frustrated me and I felt impatient with those in charge. Part of what was driving the frustration was the fear that I would not perform as well, as I hadn’t prepared for a second test. At that point I did something I’ve always found valuable. I asked in prayer, “God, what do You want me to know or understand here?”

It came to me that the real problem was not a missing document or the possibility of needing to retake a test. Rather, the core issue was that I was viewing patience as a personal quality that I had run out of.

But in truth, patience – along with grace, strength, kindness, and joy – is an unlimited spiritual quality. More than just enduring something annoying, our need is to live these qualities that God, the source of all good, expresses in us.

The trap of limiting our ability to express such qualities ties into a sense of separateness from God. But we are not truly mortals, separate from divine Spirit. We are God’s creation, entirely spiritual, reflecting our divine Maker. God expresses limitless goodness in all of His children. We can trust in God for the ability to know and express our innate graciousness and peace of mind at any moment.

As I prayed with these ideas over the next few days, I gained a more perfect – a more spiritual – concept of myself, others, and the situation. The frustration and impatience began to lift, even though there was no change in the circumstances. It became clear to me that, if needed, I could retake the test gracefully. Then, just as this sense of peace settled over me, I saw the certificate of completion sitting right on my desk – where I had previously looked for it.

So as it turned out, there was no need to retake the exam after all. But what I really got out of this was a lesson in how understanding patience as a quality of God, maintained by God – rather than a limited personal quality – allows us to better see the divine good that’s always present.

Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, wrote, “Wait patiently for divine Love to move upon the waters of mortal mind, and form the perfect concept. Patience must ‘have her perfect work’” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 454). What can spark impatience is a willfulness about wanting particular outcomes in whatever situation. Such willfulness comes from mortal mind, the counterfeit of the one divine Mind, God.

But when in prayer we open our hearts to God’s, divine Love’s, presence and provision, then impatience that stems from thwarted human will is quieted. We learn more of the “perfect concept” of spiritual reality.

Patience, that spiritual quality of graceful forbearance that God expresses in us, reveals divine good and enables us to see solutions that were not visible to us previously. So today and every day, let’s “let patience have her perfect work,” and discover our God-given wholeness, lacking nothing.