
PRAYER FOR PATIENCE
Some days, we are so distracted and busy that we find waiting on God to be impossible. On other days, we feel like all we do is wait.
We wait for our children to grow up.
We wait for a promotion or a new job.
We wait for the next best thing.
We wait for holidays and birthdays.
We wait for retirement.
We wait.
We wait.
Impatiently, we wait.
Yet, we forget that waiting is a season that shapes us.
And we forget that God waits on us, too. Like the father of the Prodigal Son, waiting and watching for his son to return home, God waits for us to turn, to return, to believe in the peace that comes with restoration.
Like the sower of seeds from Christ’s parables, God waits for us to take root, to bear fruit, to nourish others.
God, who came in the fullness of time,
who knows the timelessness beyond time, waits,
and we, in the image of God, must wait, too.
As a community seeking the kingdom of God
within our homes, with one another,
in the marketplace, the neighborhood, and the world,
may we learn how to wait,
how to be patient with stillness,
how to keep God’s eternity just under the surface,
knowing God waits for us
and knowing God waits with us.
Amen.
SERMON
POINT: Faith is inward

POINT: Patience is the art of
James 5:7-11 NRSV
Be patient, therefore, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord, is near. Brothers and sisters, do not grumble against one another so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! As an example of suffering and patience, brothers and sisters, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Indeed, we call blessed those who showed endurance. You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the outcome that the Lord brought about, for the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
“I heard a preacher say recently that hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer. Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.” —Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Galatians 6:9 NRSV - So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time if we do not give up.
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