Better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city. – Proverbs 16:32
Since the mid-1990s, the internet has been a part of our daily lives. We use it every day at home, our place of work, where we shop and even to some of places we go to. We access it through our home computers, mobile devices, cash machines and at point-of-sales. It’s great when it works at its best – fast and with no delays. Like all things, computers and the internet has it faults, its down times. When the super-fast highway of the internet becomes a go-slow zone, we get frustrated and, in some cases, angry.
For all the good that computers and internet have bought into our lives, there are all also some bad things. Instant gratification has become the norm for some people. It is a case of we want it now. Computers and the internet are perfect purveyors of this and has gotten us used to having everything here and now. The slightest delay can send us into a tizzy and have a banging our heads.
This lack of patience is becoming a trend in today’s world. Nobody wants to wait and when we do have to wait, we sometimes look for someone or something to blame it on. Most of all, we want someone to fix it straight way. In terms of the internet, we may think the fault lies at the other end and that everyone is experiencing the same thing. We fail to remember that the fault might be on our end and that it not happening to everyone.
What happens when we experience a delay that frustrates us? The first thing we do is let those we think are causing or can fix the delay know about it. The warrior comes out wanting answers and an end to the problem and we won’t stop complaining until we do. Our patience is very short, and it keeps getting shorter because of the long periods of instant gratification we experience.
God teaches us a lot about patience in the Bible. Learning to wait and to be satisfied with waiting is a major task Christians need to do. We know that we are waiting for Jesus to return, and we know that all good things come to those who wait but somehow this doesn’t apply to computers and the internet. Even Christians who have a lot of patience where their faith is concern, can become very frustrated at a twenty second delay on the internet.
Patience is something we all have to learn in all areas of our life, not just our faith. There are many examples of people in the Bible who had to wait. If you think a short delay on your computer or on the internet is frustrating, imaging experiencing a delay of 14 years like Jacob did to get the woman he loved.
It is a fact that there will be delays while we live on this earth. Some will be minor, and others will be major. The Bible is full of verses about being patience because God wants us all to have it so that we can show others how to deal with times of delay. God doesn’t want warriors who will voice their frustrations until the delay is removed, He wants people who realise that having patience is a strength and not a weakness.
Patience and self-control are intertwined with each other. It is something we need apply to all aspects of our lives and not just our faith – without patience there is no self-control and without self-control, there is no patience. Learning this is all part of the plan God has for our lives. So, the next time your patience is tested with a short delay on the internet, that it doesn’t really matter in the scheme of things in God’s plan for us.
Originally published July 2019