"He that can have patience can have what he will.¹" Benjamin Franklin was a wise man by many standards. Author of thousands of quips and quotes, Franklin was a philosopher amongst the many great minds that shaped America. He wrote from an early age as many pseudonyms in newspapers and almanacs, most notably under the name of Mrs. Silence Dogood.
However, Franklin was an older man before he saw his dreams of America fulfilled. He spent his life waiting, writing, and fighting for the country he wanted. Paul, by inspiration of the Spirit, gives us similar advice to Franklin. Like Franklin, he was writing to men and women in the middle of unprecedented times, forming a new type of nation. Rather than one founded on liberty, however, this nation was spiritual. In the letter to the Galatians, he writes "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.²"
God's time works differently than ours. God works in eternity while we are limited by lifetimes. The 70 years that Franklin had to wait were insignificant to God's frame of time. This isn't lost on Him, however. God hasn't left his people to sit and wither away in uncertainty or impatience.
Going back to the verse from Galatians, the charge given to God's people is to be patient but diligent. It's a pattern similar to baking cookies. In the beginning, you're ecstatic about good things to come. You prepare the ingredients, mix them, and lay them all on the baking tray, but then it gets tricky. The hardest part of waiting for the cookies to bake is while they're in the oven. In every other step, you are active and involved, but when the timer starts, you're left simply waiting while the aroma of things happening fills the air. If you take them out too early, they are undercooked and don't hold together. However, if we become so caught up in waiting, or we become disheartened while doing so, and neglect the oven, the cookies burn. It's only in waiting and being prepared that the cookies are taken out of the oven, and the good can be enjoyed.
In many ways, the Kingdom and its work can feel a little like that oven. We're on fire and passionate at the beginning of our faith. We build our faith and become involved in everything we get our hands on. However, at some point, the work requires patience. Something happens that isn't instant, and we can get so caught up in waiting or become disheartened by the wait that we neglect the good works to come.
God encourages the Christians in Galatia to stop this burn out by being patient and diligent. No matter what, the good works being done take time. But God encourages them to keep working, not to grow tired, because at the end of that wait is something good. Something far better than any cookies from any oven.
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash ¹Franklin, Benjamin. “Patience Quotes (1590 Quotes).” “He that can have patience can have what he will.” Goodreads. Goodreads. Accessed November 15, 2020. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/patience?fbclid=IwAR1nmWdw7yeyCth8iFxP3GL3xhlhs3U22jxHwfo5LEjTx2x5GFK8JdD1_kE.
²NKJV Study Bible: New King James Version, NKJV Study Bible: New King James Version (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2014), Galatians 6:9.
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