Good things come to those who wait (reasonable? or reckless?)
Good things come to those who wait (Proverbial Sayings: Reasonable or Reckless?) – Jun 7th, 2026
Perhaps Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was responding to the children’s nursery rhyme, “Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream” when he wrote A Psalm of Life: What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist in 1838, shortly after the death of his first wife.
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!—
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,—act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
Today as we continue our sermon series on Proverbial Sayings: Reasonable? or Reckless?, we are looking at the phrase “good things come to those who wait.” I put it to you that there is a whole lot more to life than just waiting for good things to come, in order to live the thriving life that Jesus came to give us.
Before we look at waiting, let’s clear one thing up. God clearly gives good things to all people and to all of creation. Psalm 104 includes these beautiful lines: “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures … These all look to you to give them their food in due season; when you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things … When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground.” Wow! We praise and thank you, oh God, that you generously fill all of your creatures with countless good things! What this means, in terms of our proverbial saying, is that good things come to those who wait and to those who don’t wait. Whether we wait or not does not change the reality that God gives good things to all. But today’s proverbial saying seems to imply that there are some special kinds of good things that come to us if we wait. Let’s see how reasonable and how reckless this is.
Waiting
Waiting is a universal human experience. We wait at grocery stores, post offices, restaurants, and the DMV. We wait for transportation and in endless traffic jams. (In Atlanta, the average driver loses 65 hours per year in traffic congestion.) We wait for medical appointments, diagnostic tests, job feedback, application results. We wait “on hold,” while websites load, and for digital responses to messages and posts. We wait for mail and packages and visitors and rain. Somebody has calculated that, in our country, we spend approximately 37 billion hours each year waiting in line, which has been called “a timeless form of torture.” Some waiting is very positive, though, like when we are anticipating an exciting upcoming event or taking a step forward towards a personal goal. But one thing’s for sure. Most of our waiting is linked to things beyond our control. I don’t think a day goes by when we aren’t waiting for something.
Harvard Business School professor David H. Maister makes many astute observations in his 2005 paper, The Psychology of Waiting Lines. Doing something makes waiting seem shorter than if we’re just twiddling our thumbs. The assurance that we’re seen and not forgotten helps us to be better at waiting. Anxiety, uncertainty, and lack of understanding resulting from second-guessing our decision to wait in a particular way can leave us feeling powerless, frustrated, or irritated. Waiting alone can be isolating and even devastating; there is priceless camaraderie and comfort in shared suffering, even in the cloud of waiting and unknowing.
Waiting can be really hard! The Bible mentions waiting over 100 times, most of which instruct us to not just wait, but to wait for the Lord in order to receive good things like strength, courage, hope, and salvation. Here are a few examples:
Psalm 27:14 – “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”
Psalm 130:5-6 – “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.”
Isaiah 40:30-31 – “Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
Back to our proverbial saying: It is true that we are blessed with good things like courage, hope, and strength when we wait for the Lord. But that’s not the whole story.
Let’s consider a young leader in the early church, Timothy. As I summarize his faith journey (from Acts 16-20, 1 Timothy, and 2 Timothy), consider how closely Timothy lived by the principle that good things come to those who wait.
When Paul visits Lystra, he is impressed by young Timothy’s passion and devotion to Jesus. Paul mentors him for many years and brings Timothy with him on several of his journeys to start or nurture new Jesus communities. Paul sends Timothy to Ephesus in 64 AD to confront false teachers and to restore order to the community, undoing distortions that had crept in, so that true Christian teaching that is faithful to the way of Jesus would result in love and genuine faith. Paul is clear that Timothy’s job is to provide leadership and good theological education to help both the men and women of this church to mature and become outstanding ministers of the good news of Jesus Christ. And so, Timothy instructs people in love, fought the good fight, encourages prayer for everyone, sets an example in speech and conduct, and more. History tells us that Timothy became the first bishop of Ephesus, ministering there for 33 years. The apocryphal writing, Acts of Timothy, tells us that in the year 97 AD, when 80-year-old Timothy preached the gospel during a pagan festival, he was beaten, dragged through the streets, and stoned to death.
Waiting is not meant to be the only thing or the main thing that forms us spiritually. Jesus, as the embodiment and fulfillment of the Word, Wisdom, and Torah, calls us to build our lives on Christ and to shape our lives according to avodah, the ancient Hebrew concept for God’s original design and desire for humanity. Avodah is a single word that means simultaneously work, worship, and service – a picture of integrated faith. In Joshua 24:15, Joshua says, “as for me and my household …” we will avodah (`abad) the Lord: we will work for the Lord, we will worship the Lord, we will serve the Lord. We thank God for the life and example of Timothy. But Timothy didn’t just wait for good things to come: he worked for the Lord, he worshiped the Lord, and he served the Lord.
These three facets of avodah remind us of what the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide calls the three great commissions, sometimes known as the three great mandates of Scripture:
- The Cultural Mandate, God’s charge given to human beings to use our creative abilities as God’s image-bearers to exercise responsibility and stewardship over the world and its resources (Genesis 1:26-28,2:15,9:1).
- The Great Commandment, to love God with our whole selves, and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:30-31).
- The Great Commission, to go and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19a).
To follow Jesus means working for God’s glory in fulfilling the cultural mandate, worshiping God by fulfilling the great commandment, and serving God as we fulfill the great commission.
But when hard times come, when we face darkness, discomfort, or difficulty, we humans typically tend towards one of two extremes: hyperactivity (overdrive, hustling, rushing) or hypoactivity (procrastination, avoidance, escape). Neither of these are healthy or sustainable responses. We cannot control what happens to us, but we can control how we respond. Today we are going to consider how we can cultivate two healthier responses to the difficult circumstances of our lives.
Patience
The first healthier response to life’s circumstances that we can cultivate is patience. In Ephesians 4:1b-3, Paul urges us to “lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” The Greek word for patience means literally “longsuffering,” and our English word comes from the Latin verb pati, which means “to suffer.” Patience is about enduring sorrows and sadness without breaking. Patience has been called the root and guardian of all virtues that removes obstacles to the healthy operation of all others.
Why do we need patience? Dominican priest Paul Duffner notes that “patience helps one to encounter frustrations, disappointments, contradictions, privations, sickness, hardships, etc. (all of which cause pain) without losing his serenity, without becoming irritated or despondent … It is a virtue that everyone is called upon to exercise frequently … The practice of Christian patience requires that everything be seen in the light of faith, that everything that happens in this life is permitted by God, and for our own good … This acceptance of God’s will does not prevent us from feeling the suffering of the occasion, any more than Our Lord’s acceptance of His Father’s will eliminated His suffering in the Garden of Gethsemani. There His suffering was so intense that His sweat became as drops of blood. But that awareness and acceptance of God’s will begets interior peace and serenity, enabling one to maintain self-control. That is what it means to be patient.”
What helps us to have patience? According to 18th century bishop and theologian Alphonsus Liguori, “The happiest man in the world is he who abandons himself to the will of God and receives all things, whether prosperous or adverse, as from His hands.” That means that our decision of whether to respond to the world around us with patience or impatience boils down to deciding whether we want to be happy or unhappy. Sixteenth century priest Philip Neri, famously known as the patron saint of joy, concludes that “sufferings are a kind of paradise to him who suffers them with patience, while they are a hell to him who has no patience.” Pastor Joseph Esper points out that “we’re created to live eternally, and, as the saints realized, humbly practicing the virtue of patience is an important way of preparing ourselves for Heaven.”
It can help us to remember the consequences of a lack of patience. Impatience can easily grow into anger, irritability, harsh words, and unpleasantness to others. World War I has often been cited by historians as the ultimate failure of patience. When Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, leaders across Europe abandoned diplomacy and rushed ahead with their military timetables and mobilization schedules, unwilling to wait for negotiations. This led to a devastating global conflict that might well have been avoided with a few extra weeks of patience. For most of us, the people who test our patience the most are likely among those with whom we have the closest or most proximate relationships. Instead of giving in to impatience, we can remind ourselves that the main reason we are practicing patience is not only for the sake of the person who is irritating us, but as an expression of our love for Jesus. Following Jesus on the way of love includes putting up with people, events, and situations that make us uncomfortable, irritated, or angry and that we would prefer to avoid entirely.
The last thing I want to say about patience is to encourage us to be patient with ourselves and our own plodding progress in patience. Winnie-the-Pooh offers this sage advice, “Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”
Perseverance, or Grit
The second healthier response to life’s circumstances that we can cultivate is perseverance, or, in our modern lingo, grit. Perseverance is defined as firmness of mind or spirit; unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger. Thirteenth century theologian Thomas Aquinas says that in its most active sense, perseverance is an auxiliary virtue to the cardinal virtue of courage. He describes perseverance as the firm and steadfast endurance in doing good, specifically over a long period of time, until the end. Pastor and songwriter Jack Hayford says that biblical perseverance “is not passive resignation to fate and mere patience, but the active, energetic resistance to defeat that allows calm and brave endurance.” Perseverance lies in between the extremes of deficiency (too easily giving up) and excess (being too stubborn or rigid). It is about growing in freedom to love as God loves, no matter how long it takes or how hard the work becomes. Perseverance is something we both practice and pray for, because we need to work at the habit, and we need God’s grace to be able to persevere. It takes guts to grow some grit!
Why do we need to persevere? Paul tells us in Galatians 6:8-10, “If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.” Remember, the eternal life we reap from the Spirit is not about what happens when we die. “Eternal life” refers to the full and satisfying life, the thriving life, the shalom life characterized by universal wholeness, flourishing, and delight that Jesus came to give us right here, right now! The sowing, reaping, and harvest Paul is talking about is concerned with doing good to all, showing love to neighbors, nations, friends, and enemies.
Who helps us to persevere? Jesus! Philippians 2:5-8 – “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.” Please pay close attention to the plural pronouns in this very familiar passage, Hebrews 12:1-3 – “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you [y’all] may not grow weary or lose heart.”
What helps us to persevere? We might not like this answer, but it is clear from the life of Christ and throughout the New Testament that suffering is what helps us to develop perseverance. Romans 5:2b-5 says that “we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” We may not understand our suffering or trials, which, though painful, are temporary. God’s love gives us hope and strength to be able to focus on God’s greater, eternal purpose.
Fifth century monk and theologian Nilus of Sinai called perseverance “the queen of virtues … a haven of tranquility. It is peace in time of war, calm in rough waters, safety amidst treachery and danger. It makes those who practice it stronger than steel. No weapons or brandished bows, no turbulent troops or advancing siege engines, no flying spears or arrows can shake it. Not even the host of evil spirits, not the dark array of hostile powers, nor the devil himself standing by with all his armies and devices will have power to injure the man or woman who has acquired this virtue through Christ.”
Conclusion
In conclusion, we began today with Wordsworth’s poem, an inspirational call to come away from lamenting the past, to come away from taking the future for granted, to live actively in the present. May the Lord grant each of us the grace to cultivate patience and perseverance, so that we can live the thriving life characterized by universal wholeness, flourishing, and delight that Jesus came to give us right here, right now!
Last week Paul and I finished one of our “Funky Fridays” treasure box readings – Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi. I want to share an excerpt from the very end of this beautiful and insightful book: “Just because a story was a certain way didn’t mean it would always be like that: stories took their old shape with them and fused it with the new shape. She didn’t understand yet how all the tangles of their lives would sort themselves out in her story, but she supposed it would be like raking: not every bit of earth would be untangled at once. Her father had raked the earth behind the pay-library every week, and what she’d learned from him was that raking had to do with patience … as she pulled the bamboo teeth through the earth, she kept stepping back, drawing the rake toward herself, knowing that, gradually, all of the soil would show the smooth ribbed pattern. But until then … there were clumps left over, and she had to pull the rake through them again and again, distributing the earth while discarding debris. It was as though every story she had ever told had brought her to this moment, to this story that would tell itself through her: it would be the best story she’d ever told … The final design wouldn’t happen all at once: there would be the rearrangement of it all, a fine combing through; there would be perseverance and a reverence for the task; there would be assurance that, indeed, a design would emerge.”
“Good things come to those who wait?” No, that’s not it. Following Jesus means joining God in God’s beautiful work of restoration and transformation right here, right now. There’s good and reverent work to be done: raking and rearranging and untangling and distributing and discarding of debris, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Good things come to those who cultivate patience and perseverance.
(I have a handout for you that I hope will be helpful in putting all of this into practice …)
Good Things Come to Those Who Wait Cultivate Patience and Perseverance!
Some ways to cultivate patience in our lives:
- Practice gratitude for the good things in your life
- Anchor your life in the love and grace and strength of God
- Try to understand and empathize with the sufferings of others
- Invite inspiration from the lives of Christians who have gone before, observing and imitating their patience in suffering
- Endure daily irritations and delays without complaint
- Nurture humility and surrender, as Jesus did
- Consider trials not as nuisances but as opportunities to grow in patience
- Embrace small challenges by practicing patience in everyday situations, gradually building up your tolerance for discomfort
Some ways to cultivate perseverance, or grit, in our lives:
- Go forward with courage, one choice at a time, one breath at a time
- Run together with perseverance the race that is set before us
- Imitate Christ Jesus in humble obedience
- Try to endure through trials
