Active Patience

Rev. Brian Keith gave a great sermon about patience.

In each of us [the Lord] sees the potential angel, or at least the potential for some productivity and happiness. We might look at ourselves and see all the faults, all the evils, but He does not. As the Writings note: “A person sees nothing of this universal providence, and if he were to see it, it could appear to his eyes only as do scattered heaps and assembled piles of materials to passers-by, the materials of which a house is to be built. But to the Lord it appears as a magnificent palace constantly being built and enlarged” (Divine Providence 203:2)....

Patience, the patience which the Lord leads us to find, is not passive. It is not a meekness that invites abuse, allowing evil to go unchecked. When the word “patience” is used in the Sacred Scriptures, its internal sense is perhaps different from what one might expect. It does not mean peace, or meekness. Rather, it means spiritual conflict: temptation (See Apocalypse Revealed 185, 593; Apocalypse Explained 813:2f)....

Genuine patience is the confidence that all power to save comes from the Lord alone, the recognition that we cannot change everything all at once, and the effort to resist the influence of evil in our life. Our patience here is preserving what we have seen as true in spite of the persecution of our own faults.