God is Patient

Jonah is one of my favorite Old Testament accounts. You are probably familiar with the story. God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh and proclaim God’s judgment, but Jonah knows that with the pronounced judgment is an opportunity for the Ninevites to repent, and then God could reverse His judgment. The Ninevites were known for their exceptional cruelty and wickedness. Nineveh was also the capital of Assyria, Israel’s greatest enemy. Jonah didn’t want to give the Ninevites a chance to repent, so he tried to flee from God.

I’d love to pause here, but we are going to jump ahead. Jonah ends up swallowed by a fish. Prays to God. Gets vomited up. God again tells Jonah to go to Nineveh and call out against it. This time Jonah goes, delivers the message, the people of Nineveh believe God and repent, and God relents of the disaster He said He would do to them (Jonah 3:10).

Now we get to my favorite part. Chapter 4: “¹But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. ²And he prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. ³Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.’ ⁴And the Lord said, ‘Do you do well to be angry?’”

Jonah doesn’t answer God at this point but goes outside the city, makes a booth for himself, and sits in its shade to see what would become of Nineveh. God appoints a plant to grow up and cover Jonah to give him shade. “So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant” (vs 4). The next day, God appoints a worm to attack the plant, killing it. Then God appointed a scorching wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah. Jonah asked that he might die. “It is better for me to die than to live. ⁹But God said to Jonah, ‘Do you do well to be angry for the plant?’ And he said, ‘Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.’ ¹⁰And the Lord said, ‘You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. ¹¹And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right from their left, and also much cattle?’ (vs 8b-11).

And the book of Jonah ends. Jonah’s response makes me laugh. He’s a bit of a drama queen, but it also makes me sober. Jonah is me. Jonah is likely you too. There was a situation several years ago where my husband and I were sinned against by believers in leadership at our church. We tried to reconcile, but the others were not willing.

My husband and I did our best to walk with integrity during the course of the situation, but my response in the months (and year or two) after was not honoring to God. When it was clear the others were not going to reconcile, I was ready for God to hit the SMITE button. No, I didn’t want them struck down dead, but I wanted their sin exposed. I wanted them removed from leadership. I wanted vindication. As believers they wouldn’t face God’s wrath and judgment the way an unrepentant Nineveh would, but God could discipline them, and I wanted that discipline to reign down now!

Maybe you’re thinking: “Tara, that’s a little extreme. I’m not like that.” Have you ever witnessed a car run a red light or one go speeding by you in a school zone? Have you then wished there were a policeman nearby to give them a ticket? Possibly it’s someone who cuts in front of you when you’ve been waiting in line to get your morning coffee. What thoughts run through your head then? Perhaps, the motivations in your heart aren’t so different from mine. Aren’t so different from Jonah’s.

There are several “God is…” truths in Chapter 4: gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. We are going to consider one: “Slow to anger” which can also be understood as patient or longsuffering. Jonah knew what God was like, but Jonah didn’t know only facts about God. He had direct interaction and conversations with God. Despite knowing who God was, Jonah did not choose to reflect God’s character. He was not slow to anger nor was he gracious, merciful, abounding in steadfast love, or willing to relent from his desire for Ninevah’s disaster.

Let’s consider God’s patience, longsuffering, slowness to anger. Like all His other attributes, patience is God’s nature (Romans 15:5). He doesn’t have to learn or develop His patience. It is not solely something He shows, but it is who He is. God is patient not only acting in patience towards us. In Scripture, God’s patience primarily relates to sin. We’ll start with a few helpful definitions and then see how these definitions are rooted in Scripture.

Mark Jones writes: His patience “has in view the delaying or tempering of the punishment that sinners deserve.”^[1] God postpones, for a time, carrying out the entirety of His judgment.

Edward Leigh defines God’s patience as “whereby he bears the reproach of sinners and defers their punishments; or it is the most bountiful will of God, whereby he does long bear with sin which he hates, sparing sinners, not minding their destruction, but that he might bring them to repentance.”^[2] There are a few things to note from Leigh’s definition. First, notice how he brings out God’s long bearing with sin which he hates. We struggle to bear through a meal with someone chewing their food loudly which isn’t even a sin. God hates sin. Sin is rebellion against Him. Sin puts us at enmity with God, and yet, He long bears with our sin.

Second, there is the fact that God defers punishment of sin, but He does so with a purpose: to bring sinners to repentance. This is what we learn in the account of Jonah. God could have destroyed all the inhabitants of Nineveh and flattened the city itself without ever involving Jonah at all, but God chose to defer immediate punishment, to use Jonah to announce His impending judgement, so that the Ninevites would have an opportunity to repent which they did.

The Apostle Peter addressed God’s patience in his second epistle: “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” (2 Peter 3:9). This is in the context of those who scoff at Jesus’ return because He has not yet returned. Peter counters that this is actually evidence of God’s patience with sin that all the elect (beloved, 1 Peter 1:1-3) reach repentance. God has ordained those who will be saved. He isn’t going to scrap His plan on account of the wicked. Rather, He is patient so that all His plans and purposes for the elect come to fruition.

Stephen Charnock, a Puritan, also described God’s patience: “[Patience] signifies a willingness to defer, and an unwillingness to pour forth wrath upon sinful creatures; [God] moderates his provoked justice, and forbears to revenge the injuries he daily meets with in the world.”^[3] Charnock continues, speaking of God’s simplicity (all of His attributes, all of the time): “Goodness sets God upon the exercise of patience, and patience sets many a sinner on running into the arms of mercy.”^[4]

It’s not a coincidence that Jonah included God’s graciousness, mercy, and abundant love with His patience (see Exodus 34:6-7; Nehemiah 9:17; Psalm 86:15; 103:8). As we learned in “God is simple”, all of God’s attributes are always harmoniously in effect with one another, although sometimes some may stand out more in any given circumstance. God’s mercy in particular is joined both necessarily and harmoniously with His patience. God exercises restraint (His patience) in not giving us what our sin deserves (mercy) to our benefit.

Although God’s patience isn’t as visibly highlighted in Scripture as some of His other attributes, it is nonetheless exhibited from Genesis to Revelation. By Genesis 3, Adam and Eve rebelled against God. They were punished for their sin, but God did not bring His full wrath to bear on them, and He gave them the first promise of the Messiah. He was merciful and patient even though He knew this was just the beginning of man’s rebellion against Him.

In the account of the flood, God “saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. ⁶And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. ⁷So the Lord said, ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.’ ⁸But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 6:5-8).

It took about seventy-five years or less for Noah to build the ark.^[5] Seventy-five years that God patiently, mercifully restrained punishment on mankind whose every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Seventy-five years in which mankind or even some of mankind could have repented as Noah heralded righteousness (2 Peter 2:5), but none did. God demonstrated His patience in those seventy-five years when He could have brought an immediate end to everyone except Noah and his family.

The same is true in God’s dealings with the Israelites who repeatedly rebelled against Him in the wilderness. There were times God disciplined them, but He never wiped them out completely or broke His covenant with them. He has always kept a remnant of Israel. In recent reading, there is one specific example of God’s patience which stood out. After Aaron and the people built and worshiped the golden calf, God tells Moses: “Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people” (Exodus 33:3). God told Moses He would send an angel with the Israelites to the Promised Land, but He restrained Himself from going with them, so that He would not consume them in His wrath. Moses intercedes and “reminds” God of His covenant to go with them Himself, so God says He will personally go with them. This too demonstrates God’s patience. He is restraining Himself from consuming the Israelites in judgment even as He goes with them.

We observe God’s same patience and mercy through the period of the judges and the kings as well as patience with Gentile nations. God didn’t make a covenant with the Gentiles as He did with the Jewish people in the Old Testament, but since the time of Noah, He has never completely obliterated them even though what can be known about God has been plainly seen in creation, so they are without excuse in knowing God exists (Romans 1:19-32; Acts 14:16-17). In fact, through the new covenant brought about through Jesus’ substitutionary atonement on the cross, Gentiles have access to forgiveness from and reconciliation with God. This demonstrates God’s graciousness, goodness, mercy, and patience with all mankind.

God’s power is prominently and harmoniously displayed in His patience as well. God’s mercy, grace, and goodness are probably easier to recognize in His patience, but how is God’s omnipotence related?

“²The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. ³The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lordwill by no means clear the guilty” (Nahum 1:2-3). Interestingly, Nahum prophesized about one hundred years after Jonah, but this time Nineveh would not repent. Nahum 1 begins with an oracle of God’s wrath against Nineveh. God most certainly had the power to execute His judgment on Nineveh in Jonah’s time. He chose to restrain it, but He did not and will not restrain His wrath or be patient with unrepentant wickedness forever.

Stephen Charnock points out that the reason God is slow to anger is because He is great in power.^[6] In exercising His patience, God demonstrates more of His power, in that He restrains His wrath, than “he would if he created a thousand worlds.”^[7]

Let’s pause for a minute and return to my situation with my sinful response to those who had sinned against my husband and me. I was not concerned about their repentance in terms of God being glorified and their relationships with God being restored. Instead, spiritual pride, bitterness, and selfishness had taken hold in my heart. I have the Holy Spirit indwelling me who is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. By the Spirit, I can exercise self-control over spiritual pride, bitterness, and selfishness by putting them off and putting on patience. Patience for me (and you) does not mean that I am delaying the execution of myjudgement. It does mean that I am trusting God for His timing and His purposes not mine. He is God, and I am not.

This leads into two more of God’s attributes harmoniously intertwined with His patience – God’s knowledge and eternality. God has perfect knowledge of all things. He knows all our thoughts, words, and actions before they come to be. He is also eternal. Jay Adams is helpful in how we think of God’s eternality: “Time is a matter of creation; for God it means nothing. He knows the beginning from the end. He does not exist in time. All, for Him, is an eternal now.”^[8]

What does this mean practically? God is able to be patient with us because He knows our outcome. If we are in Christ, God is patient with our sin because He knows not only are we being progressively sanctified, but we will one day be complete in Christ. As Jay Adams phrased it, this is for Him an eternal now.

Likewise, God is patient with unbelievers because He knows their outcome. “⁴Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? ⁵But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed” (Romans 2:4-5). He will judge. He will eternally punish. This is an eternal now for Him.

A side note, although by no means inconsequential, is the reality that in God’s patience towards unbelievers, many of the elect are born to wicked, unrepentant parents. Both Hezekiah and Josiah were godly kings over Judah who led by example in worshiping God, but both had incredibly wicked fathers.

My husband and I have enjoyed traveling all over the world. I typically begin researching, planning, and booking a trip six months to a year in advance. We know the trip is coming, but it is months away. We wait and wait for the day we board the plane and are off to somewhere new. The cruise line we have sailed on even gives us a countdown to departure time in their app. Sometimes it seems like departure day will never arrive, but this is not how it is for God. All, for Him, is an eternal now. This does not minimize or negate His patience because all mankind does exist in time and benefits from His patience.

There is one more crucial component of God’s patience that we need to cover. God can be patient and merciful with us because His patience is grounded in the Gospel – Jesus’ substitutionary atonement, resurrection, ascension, and His position as our Mediator. God purposed from before time that His wrath would be poured out on Jesus in our place, so that those who trust in Christ alone for salvation would never know God’s wrath and eternal punishment for sin. We all deserve hell, but for those in Christ, we receive mercy and grace.

Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension further mean that He triumphed over sin, death, and all rule, authority, power, and dominion. God has placed all things under His feet (Ephesians 1:21-22). The wicked will be judged and eternally punished.

God is patient, and He commands us to be patient. We are to imitate Him.

“¹²Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, ¹³bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive” (Colossians 3:12-13).

“And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all” (1 Thessalonians 5:14).

“¹We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. ²Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. ³For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, ‘The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me’”(Romans 15:1-3).

Patience is the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-24). If we belong to Christ, we have crucified the flesh with its passions, including impatience. When we walk in the Spirit, we will increasingly bear the fruit of patience. Like God’s other attributes, the more we saturate ourselves in God’s staggering patience towards us in Christ, the more we will respond with patience towards others.

Today we’ve discussed God’s patience in relation to sin and that is Scripture’s primary emphasis, but in Jesus we observe patience with mankind in other ways that are related to a fallen world in general. I’ve been reading through the Gospels with a friend, and I am continually amazed at Jesus’ patience with the crowds pursuing Him relentlessly at times, patience to heal one person after another, patience to keep teaching after a long day, patience with lack of understanding, and the list goes on.

We need to remember this as we respond to others. We are not to be slow to anger only regarding another’s sin. The person driving just under the speed limit ahead of you isn’t sinning against you. The person in the drive-thru of a coffee shop with an order of five drinks and a blueberry scone isn’t sinning against you. A co-worker who doesn’t understand your explanation of the cost accounting process isn’t sinning against you. When we are quick to anger over these things it reveals our heart. We don’t like being inconvenienced. We think we are right. We expect others to automatically understand us. It isn’t that the other person sinned against us, it’s about the sin in our heart that is gushing out.

What are specific ways we as women, wives, and mothers can reflect God’s patience in our home, in our church family, and others in our lives? First, God is patient with us in sanctification. There are times when growth in being Christlike takes leaps and bounds forward, other times it is a steady progression or even a step backwards as I have to put off pride once again. We need to show that same patience for our husbands, children, parents, siblings, sisters and brothers in Christ, extended family, friends, and co-workers. Growth takes time for us, and it takes time for them. We often have expectations that because we have grown in putting off a specific sin and putting on obedience or because we understand certain doctrines or passages of Scripture, those around us should be in the same place, have the same knowledge. God is the one working in their sanctification in His timing and in the change that He has determined for their good. Patience gives others time to grow and learn.

Second, there are many situations in our homes that present temptations to respond in quick anger or loving patience – conflicting and busy schedules, dirty dishes left in the sink, differing opinions or perspectives, miscommunication, lack of communication, finances, sickness, fill in the blank. These aren’t necessarily sin issues, but we have a choice how to respond: Impatience and being quick to anger or patience and being slow to anger. Patience will slow down, step back, and determine if it is a sin issue. If it is not, patience will speak gently and be willing to discuss the situation. Patience doesn’t nag. Patience listens, genuinely trying to understand the other. Patience does not grumble and complain but submits to God’s timing and ways.

For wives, if you and your husband have differing opinions, patience will gently share your opinion, then submit to your husband, trusting God with the situation. Patience won’t pester your husband about his decision.

For parents, patience may mean persevering in instruction and discipline. Patience will take time to teach God’s wisdom behind what you are asking instead of simply saying, “Because I said so.”^[9]

Third, sinners marry sinners and give birth to little sinners. Church is made up of sinner saints. Work is full of sinners. Patience will obey God’s instructions to lovingly confront sin or overlook it if the sin is not habitual. Patience will not take God’s punishment or discipline into our own hands. Patience will be forgiving. Merciful patience won’t seek to give another what they deserve. Stephen Charnock rightly said: “He is unlike God, that is hurried with an unruly impetus to punish others for wronging him.”^[10]

Fourth, we can reflect God’s patience by praying for our husbands, children, parents, and others. Prayer is an exercise of faith and hope over the long haul especially in challenging situations. We submit to God’s sovereignty and will.

Reflection

1.    How do your responses to your husband, children, or other primary relationships reflect God’s patience? How do they show impatience and a quickness to anger?

2.    Are you quick to speak, or do you first listen well to understand others’ concerns and feelings?

3.    Do you think your husband, children, or others would say they feel safe to make mistakes around you? Why or why not?

4.    Do you pause to seek God’s help before reacting in a tense situation? Brainstorm ideas as a group of how to grow in this habit. Then begin to implement one of the ideas this week.

5.    What is something about God’s patience that amazes you? Praise and thank Him.

For Further Study

1.    “What would life and faith be like if God were not patient?”^[11]

2.    “What sins or irritants illicit quick anger in you? Of what types of people or actions are you least patient?”^[12]

3.    “Is your lack of patience rooted in false belief (that certain sins are worse), a lack of self-control (ability to enact true beliefs), or pride (anger at having to wait)?”^[13]

4.    Wives, when your husband disagrees with, hurts, or disappoints you, how do you respond? If it is not a godly response, what would be a godly response that would reflect God’s patience?

5.    Moms, do you only give instruction and correct your children’s behavior, or do you take the opportunity to teach? How can you grow in teaching your children?

6.    Memorize one of the verses from “God is Patient”.

7.    Listen to or read the lyrics for “His Mercy Is More” by Matt Boswell & Matt Papa.

^[1] Jones, Mark. God Is: A Devotional Guide to the Attributes of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 143.

^[2] Leigh, Edward. Treatise of Divinity: Consisting of Three Bookes (London: E. Griffin for William Lee, 1647), 2:99.

^[3] Charnock, Stephen. The Existence and Attributes of God, in The Works of Stephen Charnock (1864; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2010), 2:504.

^[4] Ibid

^[5] Answers in Genesis has a good article explaining the time to build the ark. https://answersingenesis.org/bible-timeline/how-long-did-it-take-for-noah-to-build-the-ark/?srsltid=AfmBOoqv3eAqKB_2E5a3MDjotlVw1WSPW8k_ZLU7G8mAvT_VJIOQ-XGy

^[6] Charnock, Stephen. The Existence and Attributes of God, in The Works of Stephen Charnock (1864; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2010), 2:478-479.

^[7] Jones, Mark. God Is: A Devotional Guide to the Attributes of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 145.

^[8] Adams, Jay. Hebrews, James, 1 & 2 Peter, Jude: The Christian Counselor’s Commentary. (Memphis, TN: The Institute for Nouthetic Studies, 2023), 328.

^[9] There are certainly times when no explanation is needed and obedience should be immediate like not touching a hot stove.

^[10] Charnock, Stephen. The Existence and Attributes of God, in The Works of Stephen Charnock (1864; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2010), 2:544.

^[11] Hambrick, Brad. God’s Attributes: Rest For Life’s Struggles (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2012), 18.

^[12] Ibid, 18-19.

^[13] Ibid, 19.