Patience: Part of the Self-Gift of Love
by Dr. Peter A. Kerr
Christian love is never merely sentiment or warm emotion. Within the LUMEN grammar—where holiness is understood as God’s radiant plenitude of goodness, truth, and love—true love is always self-giving. It pours itself out, not because it is empty, but because it is full. One of the most profound and easily overlooked expressions of this self-giving is patience.
Patience, properly understood, is not passive waiting or quiet resignation. It is the costly offering of one’s own life, time, and energy for the sake of another. Patience becomes a profound form of self-gift because one is literally dying—surrendering immediate desire, pace, control, and ego.
In this way, patience is like work (see that article here). It draws its value from the cost it requires of the one who gives it. Every moment of patience is a small death to the self and therefore a meaningful act of love. It echoes the divine plenitude that gives without fear of depletion. The patient person participates in the very radiance of God’s life.
This is why Paul begins his famous description of love with a single, unexpected word: “Love is patient” (1 Cor 13:4). Before kindness or humility, before hope or endurance, patience stands at the forefront. It is the first shape love takes in the world because patience creates space for another person to grow, to return, to heal. Patience respects the other as important and places the self on hold. Patience honors the pace of another’s becoming. Patience is love refusing to coerce, refusing to force outcomes, refusing to press itself forward. It is love choosing hope over haste.
We see this divine patience reflected across the Godhead; it is a deep reflection of God’s own character. Scripture repeatedly portrays God as “patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Pet 3:9). Divine patience is not apathy or indecision; it is holy love stretched across time. God waits not because He is weak, but because He is full—full of generous goodness, radiant truth, and unifying love.
In the Father, patience appears as the generous space He gives His creatures to grow. In the Son, patience appears in the non-coercive revelation of truth, gently illuminating without forcing itself upon anyone. In the Spirit, patience appears as the quiet, steadfast presence that holds relationships together without swallowing the freedom of the other.
Because patience reflects divine plenitude, Christian growth cannot happen apart from learning to practice it. We love because God first loved us (1 John 4:19); we learn patience because God has been infinitely patient with us. When we endure with one another, we participate in the life of the One who endures with the world. Patience is one of the primary arenas in which the human will is healed, strengthened, and trained to choose love.
It is in the furnace of frustration, delay, disappointment, and repeated imperfection that the will learns to give without grasping and to hope without demanding. Spiritual disciplines play a critical role here. Practices like prayer, fasting, Scripture meditation, worship, and humble service do not earn favor with God. They form the will. They train the heart to slow down, to listen, and to love at God’s pace rather than the pace of impulse or irritation. They renew the mind (Rom 12:2) by teaching us to see others—and ourselves—as God sees us.
Patience also reveals something important about holiness. Holiness is not rigid separation from humanity but participation in God’s fullness. Impatience is the refusal of this fullness: a shrinking of the soul, a grasping after control, a resistance to the time love requires. Impatience treats the other as an obstacle rather than a person. Patience, by contrast, enlarges the soul. It honors the image of God in the other. It trusts that God is at work even when nothing appears to be changing. As such it is the very soil of faith. It is holiness that has taken on flesh.
And this brings us to the most hopeful truth of all: patience is God’s primary mode of love toward the world. From the long wanderings of Israel, to the prophets calling generation after generation, to Jesus’ slow and gentle dealings with His disciples, to His silence before accusers, to His repeated calls for repentance, Scripture portrays God as a God who waits. He does not force Himself upon the world. He does not compel faith. He does not crush the slow, confuse the lost, or abandon the resistant. He waits for the beloved. He waits for the prodigal. He waits for the nations. He waits for us.
Divine patience is not weakness; it is the strength of a God who has no need to coerce—indeed, no needs whatsoever. It is the radiance of holy love. And it is the first thing Paul says love is.
To grow in patience is to grow in love.
To grow in love is to become more like God.
And to become more like God is to become, freely and joyfully, what we were always meant to be.
Supporting Scripture (in NASB)
1 Corinthians 13:4 "Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,"
2 Peter 3:9 "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance."
1 John 4:19 "We love, because He first loved us."
Romans 12:2 "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect."
Exodus 34:6 (often referenced in discussions of God's character): "Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, 'The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;'"
Galatians 5:22-23 (patience as fruit of the Spirit, tied to love): "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."
Colossians 3:12 (clothing oneself in patience as part of holy love): "So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience;"
A Small Guide to Practicing Patience in Daily Life
Patience becomes real not in the rare heroic moments but in the ordinary ones—the checkout line, the crowded intersection, the slow-moving restaurant shift, the unexpected delay. These moments are not interruptions to spiritual life; they are the places where love can take form.
When you find yourself waiting in line at the grocery store, consider the moment a small, holy invitation. Instead of seeing the delay as an affront to the self, see it as a chance to bless. Offer a silent prayer for the people around you. Notice the humanity of the cashier. Let the time become gift rather than irritation.
When traffic slows or stops entirely, breathe and remember: this is a moment to practice presence. A moment to let the Spirit soften your instinct to control. Perhaps whisper a prayer for someone who needs grace today—even if that someone is you.
When your waiter is slow or overwhelmed, extend kindness. After all, they are called a “waiter” because they wait on you. Your patience honors their dignity. Your gentleness becomes a small act of mercy.
Patience, in these small daily spaces, becomes a way of giving yourself. A way of letting time—your most finite resource—be offered in love rather than guarded in frustration. And each time you choose this path, you become a little more spacious, a little more Christlike, a little more aligned with the radiance of God’s patient love.