Summary
Impatience as an "Acceptable" Sin
"I'm just an impatient person—I want to get so much done." That confession often functions less as repentance and more as a backhanded compliment, dressing up rudeness in the costume of ambition. Impatience belongs to that family of sins we quietly excuse in ourselves because everyone seems to share them. Yet what is acceptable in our own eyes is not acceptable in the eyes of God.
Scripture's call to patience is constant and unmistakable. Paul urges believers to walk worthy of their calling "with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love" Ephesians 4:1-2. James points to the farmer who waits for the early and late rains James 5:7-8. The great hymn of love opens with this very note: "Love is patient" 1 Corinthians 13:4. And Ecclesiastes adds, "The patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit" Ecclesiastes 7:8.
The opposite is just as well documented. Israel, freed from Egypt and fed with manna, complained that God's provision and pace were not enough. Later generations forged an alliance with Egypt rather than wait on the Lord, and God rebuked them as "rebellious children… who carry out a plan, but not mine" Isaiah 30:1. Impatience can be aimed at God, at others, at circumstances, at timing, even at ourselves—and in every direction it amounts to the same refusal: we will not wait.
The antidote is laid out plainly in Psalm 130:5-6: "I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning." The threefold "waiting" describes the whole person—the soul as one's entire being—watching like a guard who knows the dawn will come and dispel the darkness. The hope attached to this waiting is not wishful thinking but confidence: confidence in God's promises. Patience, in other words, is tethered to promises. We wait because God has spoken, and God keeps His word (Isaiah 30:15; Psalm 37:7; Jeremiah 29:11; Psalm 46:10).
A vivid example comes from Charles Simeon, appointed in the late 1700s as pastor of Holy Trinity, Cambridge, against the wishes of a congregation that wanted someone else. For twelve years they boycotted services and locked the pews so that those who came had to stand in the aisles. Asked later how he endured, Simeon answered, "I saw no remedy but faith and patience." He kept preaching. Eventually the pews were unlocked, hearts were transformed, and his ministry there continued for a total of fifty-four years. He had learned Psalm 130 by heart: waiting on the Lord and hoping in His word.
Christ has borne the whole weight of our sin, including our impatience, and won for us full forgiveness. And patience itself is not finally a personality trait to manufacture but a fruit the Holy Spirit produces in us through the Word Galatians 5:22-23. There is no need to run ahead of God, no need to suspect Him of being slow or forgetful. He is God, and we are not. The Antidote for impatience is His promises—and in them we rest, in them we wait.
Video citations
- Impatience: Antidote for impatience 3-16-25 — What you open your Bible's please with me to Psalm 130 for our time and God's Word today. If you're using a Pew edition of Holy Scripture, you're going to find that in the Old Testament, page 537,…