Burden to Impart:

Patience is necessary to gain the benefit of our endeavors. Patience is the ability to wait without anxiety for something you want now, or expect but do not as yet see or possess. The unseen factor of time is necessary for many things to be accomplished. A patient person is not anxious while waiting for what he desires. Neither is he idle or lazy. A patient person is diligently doing today what can be done today, and is calmly waiting for what will come later. Those whom God has been able to use to cooperate with Him to fulfill His purpose on earth have all been people of faith (believing His Word and promises) and patience (waiting for Him to fulfill what He has spoken).

Facts to Teach:

1. In order to cultivate and develop the eight items of character that we have studied (being genuine, exact, strict, diligent, broad, fine, stable, and deep) we must have patience. Patience is the ability to calmly wait for something we want now or expect to come, but do not yet see or possess.
2. Patience takes into account the importance of one great factor--time. For a person to be patient does not imply that he is passive, lazy, or slow. A patient person, on the contrary, is a person who has a goal before him and is working steadfastly toward his goal. However, he realizes that anxiety, worry, haste, or excessive pressure will not help him reach his goal, for the time factor must be taken into account. Everything is not merely a matter of work and effort. In many cases time is an important factor to achieve the desired outcome.
3. An excellent example of patience is seen in the farmer. A farmer plows the soil, plants and waters the seed, and then waits. He patiently waits while time does its work. However, he does not wait in an idle way. He works diligently; weeding, fertilizing, spraying for insects, etc. He has much to do to nurture and protect his crop. But for the growth and maturity of the crop a certain amount of time is needed. For the farmer, waiting is normal.
4. One of the hardest "lessons" for a young person to learn is patience. A baby is tlle most impatient person. The moment the baby feels hunger he screams. To the baby who has only lived a few days, to wait five minutes seems like a long time. To a hundred-year-old man, however, even five hours is not very long, because he has lived through hundreds of thousands of hours.
5. Those whom God has been able to use to fulfill His purpose have all been people who through faith and patience have cooperated with Him to inherit His promises (Heb. 6:12).
   1. Noah, being warned of a coming flood, labored diligently 120 years to build the ark. This required much patience, but finally the flood came.
   2. Abraham and Sarah waited patiently 25 years for God to fulfill the promise He had given them to have a son (Heb. 6:15).
   3. In order for the children of Israel to enter the promised land, Moses needed to patiently endure for 40 years while they wandered in the desert.
6. We learn patience when we must wait for something that we want to have right now but cannot have until later. In the meantime, we should learn to occupy ourselves with the things we should be doing now, instead of anxiously wasting the time we have to wait. Some examples are:
   1. If ice cream is served at 8:00 p.m., rather than anxiously watching the clock, it is better to do something to occupy oneself.
   2. If you cannot drive a car until 16 years of age, study the driver's manual and learn the rules and laws beforehand.
   3. If you want to have a new bicycle, start saving for it as you wait.