Patience

Foundational

Value

What is Patience:

It’s said that Patience is a Virtue. It is so.

Patience is a “strength of will”, where one moderates their energy, their eagerness, their compulsion to act or speak; despite provocation, despite annoyance, despite imposed stress, despite pain. A Patient person withholds their reaction without temper, irritation, or annoyance.

A Patient person will choose a different tempo in both their thoughts and actions. They will Think First, they will Listen, they will Think some more: considering the whole situation, the People involved, the Risks, and the Benefits. Then they will choose the most sensible or best amongst the alternatives to action.

The Patient person will be restrained before making rash decisions. They will carefully render their judgment, offer their advice, withhold their emotions, and act only when the time is right.

Patient people usually resolve disputes with discussion and understanding; certainly before anger is aroused and conflict sets in.

Examples of Patience:

Patience is resolute. Patience is Inspiring. Patience awaits with dedication, wisdom, and humor.

Examples of Patience are:

A Farmer, waiting for his seasons to till, plant, harvest and fallow the earth.

A Biologist, researching cures for disease.

Parents waiting for their One Year Old to take his first Steps; their Two Year Old speaking his first words; their Teenager saying “Thank You Mom & Dad”, their Daughter giving birth to a new Generation.

God waiting for sleepy souls to Awaken.

Anti-Value: Agitation

Agitation is the opposite of Patience.

Agitation is when someone intentionally acts recklessly, prematurely, rashly, in anger or frustration; worse still, when someone acts with sinister intent.

The Agitator is quick to ignore what is sensible, what is thoughtful, what is honest, what is “life-improving”. Instead, the Agitator is content with forcing presumptive behavior that leads to confusion and deception.

The Agitator misleads other people’s minds and hearts.

The Agitator acts to undermine a Good Person’s Beliefs, Values, and Institutions, and supplant them with lies, rumors, slander, personal attacks, and ridicule.

The Agitator’s desire is often Power and Revolt.

An Agitator welcomes strife, hostility, acrimony, & resentment.

The Agitator leads the unwitting to disruption of civic order, to erosion of established truths.

In the end, the Agitator is content with the strife caused by his deceit, oftentimes ending in violence, suffering, destruction and death.

Biblical References of Patience:

Romans 8:25: “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience”

Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

James 1:19: “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;”

Peter 3:9: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”