Patience.

The evening was warm as we settled in with our plastic buckets, worms and poles. Grandpa had picked us up to join him in one of his new found loves - fishing. I don’t know if he always loved to fish but he sure found it exciting now that he was close to retirement.

And he had found a great spot to go fishing: Cranberry bogs. Where I grew up, there were numerous cranberry bogs and ponds used to flood the bogs in the late Fall. And those ponds were virtually untouched by anglers . . . until Grandpa discovered them.

I quickly learned the art of patience. I had never caught a fish before other than little bait fish on a neighboring farm’s stream. This was exciting. But there was some patience involved. Patience in just sitting quietly watching the bobber. Patience as we were instructed by Grandpa about when to set the hook.

At first, my inexperienced reaction was to yank the line too quickly, before the fish had even grabbed the bait. Then I careemed to the other end of the spectrum and waited too long; the bait was all gone by time I reeled in my line. Eventually, with Grandpa’s strict rules of proper timing, I employed patience and set the hook, landed my first fish, and became instantly in love with fishing.

What I learned about patience has set a good stage for our topic this weekend on “Patience.” With that topic we will be looking into Psalm 2 and 2 Peter 3. What I learned through fishing with my grandfather was that patience means properly timed action to achieve the proper result. That fits our texts for this weekend also.

Patience does not mean “no action.” It simply is a matter of knowing when to engage in order to accomplish the set goal. In our text for this weekend, the goal of God is patient timing for being fishers of men.

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). So as we engage in the continuing work of our Savior, we remember that He is patient with us so that we can experience the devastation of our mistakes and the clear providence of His grace. He is loving and patient, not wanting any to perish.

His patience leads some to repentance. And it has obviously led you to repentance, this is why you are reading this article today. May God bless us all as we seek his same patient attitude and bless this generation.