The writer James encouraged his reading audience to have some patience in their wait for the coming of Jesus and of God’s judgment upon the wicked. He said: “Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it, until it receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; establish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord is at hand” (Jas 5:7-8).

He appealed to them to be patient because impatience is one of the great problems of humankind. All of us to some degree are impatient about some things, and most of us are so about many things. When we are hungry we cannot wait for the food to be cooked and served. That is the very reason that “fast food” (whether healthful or not!) has become so popular in our modern society. We are too impatient to wait for the slow kind!

We hate to wait in long lines at the Supermarket or at the Mall. We would prefer to walk right up to the register and be checked out immediately. When it does not work out that way, we tend to become surly and impatient. Sometimes we may be short with the person who is at the register, even though they have no control over how many registers may be open at the time. We are not evidencing Christian character when we fail to show the kind of patience that the Scriptures encourage us to demonstrate before worldly people.

At the doctor’s office we may get impatient with the nurses out front, in spite of the fact that they are not in charge and cannot be held responsible for numerous “emergency patients” who call to see the doctor because they are very ill and want an appointment “today and not tomorrow.” If we will be honest with ourselves, we will have to admit that we have called the office at least one or more times begging the nurses to “fit us in” because we needed to see the doctor that day. And still we are impatient with them when we have to wait longer than the appointment time would normally be. It ought not to be this way.

But when you consider the circumstances that are depicted in the letter of James, it takes this whole matter to another level altogether. These folks were impatient with God. He was simply taking too long in this business of sending Jesus back to judge the world and rescue the righteous from the clutches of evil men. Now when we have reached this level of impatience, we have most certainly gone too far with our rabid obsession with our own calendar, clock, or method of measuring God’s timeliness! I recognize that this is nothing new for the human family; the Bible records plenty of occasions where the people of God expressed their impatience, and even their occasional exasperation with God’s timing of his actions. Frequently God’s timing was unacceptable to his people and they said so.

In fact, on many different occasions the Lord’s people cried out to him to ask him how long it was going to take for him to act to save them from some enemy or deliver them from some tragic or even horrible circumstance: “O LORD, God of vengeance, O God of vengeance, shine forth! Rise up, O judge of the earth; repay to the proud what they deserve! O LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked exult? They pour out their arrogant words; all the evildoers boast. They crush your people, O LORD, and afflict your heritage. They kill the widow and the sojourner, and murder the fatherless; and they say, “The LORD does not see; the God of Jacob does not perceive” (Psa. 94:1-7). Again, “O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted” (Hab. 1:2-4).

“Patience is a virtue,” indeed it is! But it is not a virtue easily developed in our souls. Like the prayer that runs thus: “Lord, give me patience, and give it to me now!”, we do not wait easily or painlessly. And the problem is that when we are like this it is because we do not share God’s perspective on the process. We are like the fellow who is so hungry for strawberries that he goes to the strawberry patch and picks them while they are still green. Then he complains because they are not red and do not taste as sweet as the red ones do. Or the fellow who gripes at the cook until he is served chicken that is still raw inside. Then he turns up his nose at the raw bird because he fears that it will make him sick (and he is probably right).

Our text says that God is like a husbandman who waits for the precious fruit of the earth, “being patient over it, until it receive the early and the latter rain.” The farmer knows how long it takes to develop a finished product, and so he bides his time until it is ready for harvest, and then and only then, does he pick the fruit. So it is with the Lord of the harvest. He waits until the perfect moment, whether we are ready or not, and it is only then that he sets about the task of judging the earth.

James therefore advises, “Be ye also patient; establish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord is at hand” (v. 8). What we need is the patience to wait. God will attend to the rest. Jesus will come again someday. It may not be in my lifetime, or yours. But when he does it will be when the harvest of the earth has enjoyed both the early and the latter rain. Just be patient, brethren!