Cultivating Survival Attitudes in Difficult Times - Part II
The Assignment of Patience
by Dr. John Tetsola

Last month we saw how patience helps us to survive the process of God which manifests in adversity or storm in the life of the believer. God uses our trials as a proving ground for the development of patience. Therefore, it’s important to learn how to cultivate the fruit of patience by possessing our soul in trials. Since the vibrancy of our soul is lost when we’re governed by circumstances, we must allow God’s assignment of patience to perfect and do a thorough work in us, making us a body of believers fully developed and without defect.

By your steadfastness and patient endurance you shall win the true life of your souls.

Luke 21:19 AMP

Patience is a necessary ingredient in the maintenance of our soul. Without it, our faith in God will waiver and be disturbed in the midst of trial, causing emotional and unstable responses. But with steadfastness and patient endurance we will be masters over our souls, taking God’s side against ourselves and mastering the situation by displaying a calm and serene attitude. In Psalm 131:2 David said, “Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.” The peace of your soul is yours to win. You have to develop the fruit and inner mechanisms of patient endurance to win the life of your soul and bring it to a place of quietness and trust in God.

THE OUTCOME OF PATIENCE

Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience. But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing.

James 1:3-4 AMP

There’s a cloud of witnesses whose voices echo into eternity the exhortation that we can make it (Heb. 12:1). They are our examples of patient endurance because they died without receiving the promise. Besides the cloud of witnesses, we must look to Jesus (the greatest example of all) for the grace to patiently endure our course. Jesus endured the turning away of the face of His Father in the midst of His process. He satisfied the justice of God by mastering His soul and embracing the patience required to end well. Patience has an assignment. The assignment of patience is to bring us to maturity in the things of God so that we lack in nothing (Jas. 1:3-4). The Lord wants you completely blessed, nothing missing and nothing broken. There were no vacancies in the Lord’s life, no place for the enemy to set up camp, no breaches in His divine hedge. And the same can be said of us – if we embrace the assignment of patience in our lives. This is where the ‘rubber meets the road,’ where we must let patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that we may be fully developed and without defect. In the throes of your trial, master your soul and patiently endure the process. Allow the assignment and fruit of patience to process you and bring you to an expected end.