In the Bible there is a recurring theme of planting seeds and collecting the fully-grown crops at harvest time. Biblical authors draw on this theme to describe our characters and how we should act. I want to highlight the connection between this theme of planting and patience.

Patient with a purpose

Throughout history, humanity has often strayed from God’s teaching, but God has revealed himself to be a loving, forgiving, and patient God. To me, that begs the question: why is God patient with us? We read that God was patient with the Israelites for ‘many years’.

“For many years you were patient with them. By your Spirit you warned them through your prophets. Yet they paid no attention, so you gave them into the hands of the neighbouring peoples.” (Nehemiah 9:30, NIV)Sowing/scattering as a metaphor

To try and answer the question of why God is patient with us, it can be useful to first check out how biblical authors used metaphors about agriculture. In the book of Amos we read:

“‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when the reaper will be overtaken by the ploughman and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills, and I will bring my people Israel back from exile. They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,’ says the Lord your God.” (Amos 9:13-15, NIV)

This passage uses a lot of agricultural references to discuss how God intends to restore His chosen people, but what is the connection with patience? Let’s compare with one more piece of scripture, “…Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled…” (Isaiah 18:2, KJV)

Through his inspired writers, God has now shown us three things that are going to be important when we try to understand why and how He is patient with us. In Nehemiah, God was ‘patient’ with Israel for many years, in Amos a ‘planter’ or ‘sower’ in some translations is used as a metaphor for something, and in Isaiah a nation is described as ‘scattered’, similarly to how seeds are ‘scattered’ when it is time to plant. The connection between these passages is that each of those words is actually the same Hebrew word, ‘Mashak’.

Word play

So why does it matter that the biblical authors decided to use this word ‘Mashak’ to describe patience, as well as certain agricultural terms? I think it shows us that God wants us to notice the connection between waiting patiently, and a seed sprouting into a rich harvest.

Did New Testament writers adapt this metaphor?

The writers of the New Testament definitely used this rich metaphor to describe our walk as Christians, and continued the Old Testament theme of patience being a state of waiting for something, like crops, to be fully developed. A couple of really great examples:

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9, NIV)

“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” (James 1:2-4, KJV)

As you can see, there is a clear link between patience and the agricultural metaphor, but James even takes this one step further, and makes a link between our faith being tested, and given time to become perfect and ‘entire’, which means that it will be given time to become fully developed.

Grow in patience

What does this mean for us as readers of the Bible? We can think of this biblical principle in a few ways, but here are two things that I think are really important:

• God is being patient with me, so that I can have the time I need to develop into the potential that God knows I can.

• We can be patient with others to allow them time to grow and model one of God’s characteristics that He has chosen to use when working with His people.

So don’t give up, continue growing in patience so that we can all produce a harvest when we are fully developed!