Question: Preacher, I feel like I don’t have enough patience. Can you tell me how I can become more patient?

Answer: I am sure that most of us feel as you do. In the scriptures, "patience" is the ability to endure, to persevere. Several passages which deal with patience (e.g., James 1:3; Romans 5:3, 4, et. al.) indicate that it is the product of experience which comes from our faith’s being tested. This indicates that the primary object is to have deeper and stronger faith and that faith in God and Christ is the starting place in developing patience. When one clings firmly to that faith through the test, not only does faith become stronger and purer, but one’s ability to hold on grows. God gives wisdom on how to do this in answer to prayer (James 1:5). This applies generally. Start by firmly establishing one’s confidence in what one ought to do/be (e.g., be good to someone who is inconsiderate, not eat too much, control one’s temper, not say hateful things, etc.). Then as this belief is tested, and one holds onto it through the test, the belief becomes stronger and the ability to endure grows.