Wait. What?

Today I walked my dog. That’s not unusual. But he’s slowing down; he is 12 years old.

I was feeling fit and ready to jog and yet he decided that he just wasn’t into walking today. I gave him encouragement and from time to time he sped up a little, but the lead was taut much of the way. I had a choice. I could get frustrated with him, or I could slow down and allow him to go at the speed that he needed to.

A while ago I labelled a blog ‘Love is patient, Love is kind’ but went on to only talk about kindness. Today, we’re circling back to patience.

What is patience all about? Waiting in a queue? Trying not to explode when we’re ready and someone else needs to find their shoes?

‘Love is patient’ the saying goes, so how does patience go deeper than a tight lipped grimace in the face of slothfulness? Patience is the antithesis of being in a hurry. But it is so much more.

When we plant a garden, we can water and fertilise those plants, but fundamentally, we can’t make them grow. What we can do is cultivate the right atmosphere for optimal growth to take place.

Patience is about holding the space to allow someone to grow or allow something to happen without pressure and without force.

We often know our own limitations and justify our own flaws, but when we see flaws in others, we strike!

Being patient is to exercise self-control before we strike. It is an internal discipline of learning to let someone else deal with their own stuff and not to allow it to upset our own equilbrium. It does take practise to strengthen ourselves enough internally to let something pass with grace and patience.

Impatience is often about us. When we’re getting frustrated, there’s a good chance that our unbearable feeling is getting stirred up.

‘We’re late – do you know how that will make me look?’

‘You did it wrong again – do I always have to do it?’

‘You’re going so slowly – this is wasting my time.’

I read one man’s recollection of getting stuck at the lights when his son was 5 years old. He muttered under his breath at the driver in front who could have made it around the corner, but didn’t. His son asked him why he was cross and he explained that he hadn’t made it through the lights. His son asked a simple two word question that had stuck with him for years, “So what?”

In the big scheme of things did that one light change really matter?

Love is patient, love is kind. It is kind to allow another person space – to be patient. When you can be patient and keep a supportive attitude, that is extending love.

Perfect love is the opposite of fear because fear has to do with punishment.

When we have a habit of impatience, others may try and live up to our expectations, but they will be waiting for the moment when we get frustrated; the moment that they wish wouldn’t happen. That is a small demonstration of living in fear, or expecting punishment. The relationship links to fear because of our impatience.

When we are patient, we keep fear of punishment out of the equation. Those we love can be themselves without fearing our disapproval or pressure.

There are at least two types of patience. One is patience in the immediate here and now and the other is patience in growth. We all have different wiring as to which is our preferred type of patience, but through practise we can all grow.

Sometimes being patient is to be kind to those around you in those short-term, high-pressure situations.

Not merely tolerating or being jaw clenchingly nice, but showing patience with soft eyes and an open heart. Holding the space for another to do what they need to do: having realistic expectations, lending a helping hand if that is what is needed, extending grace for someone else’s failings. This is much easier to do if we have allowed margins in our own schedule so that we have some space in our day.

But where we are extending grace time and again for the same things and there is a pattern of bad time management or another unhelpful habit, there is opportunity for us to walk alongside them as they recognise and grow in this area. Allow them time and space to do what they need to do, time and space to make mistakes, time and space to learn and to grow. We can set expectations and boundaries with a heart to see them grow – this is an aspect of love when we can exercise it with patience.

When you see someone day by day it is very hard to see growth. Your patience can wear thin. Think of that aunt who hasn’t seen you in a while and with the gift of time, she marvels at how much you have changed. Over time, small adjustments accumulate to make visible change.

It’s one thing to be patient with yourself when you’re changing, quite another to be patient with someone else. Offering them time and space to change or just to be, is a real gift that shows your value for them. It is a way to display love practically.

Then there’s patience in the long term: I’m thinking of this as less about day to day behaviour and more about life trajectory.

Do we sit with our loved ones as wise counsel for them to bounce their ideas off or do we try and railroad our opinions of how they should go about their next phase of life?

Where their long term goal is different than we think would work; can we allow them to take steps in that direction and realise that it’s really not for them?

Perhaps they take those steps and it’s us that ends up changing our mind – they are passionate, thriving, and it’s turning out to be better than we imagined. Coming alongside them with encouragement is a wonderful gift!

Patience is less about the thing that you’re frustrated by and more about the way that you handle it. What is your attitude – one that generates love or fear? How will you process that inconvenience yourself so that you can hold the space for another?

In a world where many of us pack as much as we can into each day, growing in patience might look like slowing down and creating space for yourself. When you’re already late it’s hard to wait at the traffic light. But when you have given yourself time to transition from place to place, the natural flow of traffic ceases to be so stressful.

Patience is cultivating an atmosphere of love for others – it might be a family member, it might be a stranger. Whoever the person might be, the atmosphere that we cultivate will influence their day.

Love is patient, love is kind. We can’t change people, we can only choose to cheer them on, support and champion them, or create an atmosphere of tension and pressure. We appreciate it when others allow space and support us, let’s exercise patience so that we can create space and support others.

In different seasons of life those around us require different types of patience. When our dog was young, we needed patience as he zoomed around; now, it’s for how slowly he moves from place to place.

But patience is not about him. It is about us. We can cultivate a space for him to thrive despite his limitations and in the process, we too will grow.