Weekly Articles

                                                                        Accepting His Sovereignty Produces Patience

                                     “And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise” Hebrews 6:15

When we accept that our God is sovereign we have come to the full revelation of Romans 11:33 which says “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!” Our all-powerful, all-knowing God is a majestic authority who reigns in life. Nothing is beyond the scope of His sovereignty; meaning there is nothing going on in the earth, or our lives that He is not well aware of. The Psalmist says in Psalm 139:6 that God’s infinite knowledge is to wonderful for him; that it is high above him, that he cannot reach it. “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.” Accepting God’s sovereignty entails trust and patience. Trust means that because my God is the sovereign ruler of this universe, and He is my Lord and Master, and in complete control of my life, I choose to trust Him. It means that I have accepted what Isaiah 55:8 says that His ways and thoughts are higher than my own; therefore, I understand that God may choose to do things in a totally different way than I expect. It means that I have submitted myself to His will and His ways, and will employ patience so that the perfect work of God can be completed in my life. My short-sighted view and understanding of life’s situations and circumstances cannot begin to compare with the omniscience of God. When I accept that He is sovereign, the decision has been made to trust Him with all my heart and not to lean to my finite understanding, granting Him the opportunity to direct my path by acknowledging that He is fully able to do what He wills for my life (Proverbs 3:5, 6). And when we learn to trust the sovereignty of God and live in harmony with His will, His timing starts to make sense to us as the plan begins to unfold with each step that we take. Ecclesiastes 3:1 tells us that “to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” What we must truly grasp from this passage is that God is in control of the timing. He makes decisions for our life based on His infinite wisdom and knowledge. Isaiah 46:10 tells us that God has declared the end from the beginning. He has already gone before us to prepare the end of the thing before He stated us on the journey; therefore, He knows the bumps and pitfalls of life that stand in the way of the end. But because He is in complete control and Omnipotent, we are kept by His power as we travel on this journey and therefore well able to overcome and withstand every force that attempts to hinder our progress on this journey. When we have discerned all this, then we learn the importance of patience. Everyone struggles with some degree of impatience, but if we desire to see the fruition of what God has promised, we must be willing to wait for God’s timing. My in-born trait of neither impatience nor fretting because of discomfort or urgency causes the plan of God to be fulfilled. It’s a picture of a thermometer with God’s hand on it; He controls the temperature according to the conditions, and makes it comfortable (meaning it brings it to pass) when He decides. Although we may feel at times as if we know the way we should take, it is the sovereign hand of God who is directing according to His wisdom and knowledge of the situation which is beyond our comprehension.

Let’s consider the biblical definition of patience. It can mean both longsuffering and perseverance, or not giving up and yielding under pressure. Patience will always reveal itself when we are willing to wait without frustration while suffering or experiencing some strong desire we have deemed we are prepared to receive at our own appointed time. Our Omnipotent, Omniscient God; our Sovereign Lord and Master has already set an appointed season and time to fulfill His purpose in our life, and because we have accepted His sovereignty we accept whatever situation we face in life without giving God deadlines. Patience will allow us to accept what the Lord gives on His timetable and not according to our own preconceived notion of when, where, and how He should do it. Patience will ask the question: Are you willing to remain in your current position until you receive clear divine direction from God? Waiting upon the Lord is a deliberate decision that requires patience. Job in the most deployable condition refused to allow his situation, nor his friends to move him away from the confidence of the sovereignty of God. Although he was not aware that the trial he faced was an open invitation from God to Satan, yet he stated in Job 13:15 “though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him: but will maintain mine own ways before Him.” Then over in Job 14:14 he says again “…all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.” You talk about giving patience a full-time job in his life; he chose to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord when he had suffered so much loss and pain. The danger of impatience in these situations is that we might miss the Lord’s perfect plan and blessing. Only when we trust our Father’s will and timing can we rest peacefully, and speak words of faith and trust to acknowledge the sovereignty of God. Listen at what Job says in Job 42:2, “I know that God can do all things, and that no thought or purpose can be withholden from Thee.” Job patiently endured the trial which he faced. Surely we would have wanted to be delivered from it in his own timing, rather, not to have suffer what he did at all, but because he understood that God is in complete control, and he employed patience, Job 42:12 tells us “so the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than the beginning.” Don’t lose sight of this truth: “God declares the end from the beginning”: God would have never asked Satan “hast thou not considered my servant Job” (Job 1:8), if He had not already put in him what He was about to allow life to do to him. Accepting the sovereignty of God will dispel the desire of trying to take matters into our own hands and cause us to release every circumstance and situation to Almighty God, and we will then let “patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing” (James 1:4). Listen to Psalm 37:7 which says, “Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him”, for He knows how to get you to your destination.