When I read tribulation worketh patience, I like to add the words tribulation forces one to be patience. If you ever stood in line in amusement park you know you can not get on the ride any faster then the ride moves to allow new people on. Standing in line can seem like a life time. I know even standing in a grocery line can take time as well. However when one is in a hurry it seems every line in a store is full, or every doorway is crowded, every idiot drive out there is on the cell phone and stopped in the middle of the road, or evey light is red and not green to go. Where are we going what is five minutes late, but the cost of work hours and work is money, and to the employee it cost them five minutes or do they get to put that extra five minutes waiting to change shifts. Who knows, every place has it own rules on time. None of these things are tribulation, or struggles they are a part of life. Have a love one with tubes running out of them and ask are you patiencely waiting for when those tubes are remove and you can take that person home. Yet the time of waiting can lead to much time talking to God or being angry with God. Paul learned while be in chains he could not make the guard and court system move any faster, or the ability to be free from living condition that maybe not so favorable.Yet Paul also had opportunity to witness in his suffering. In his struggle to see people saved.

Missionary have gone to other countries to share the gospel of Jesus and encounter hardship not expected, including living condition, water conditions, sanitary conditions and more, and yet the need for workers to build and create water supply from wells, irrigation systems and even dams, were only part of the situation. The need for people to understand the need for cleanliness, only for the world to one day see there own filth by the corona virus, is only making our nation ask is there really that big of a problem and the death toll tells the story. Yet none of these conditions changed a missionary love of telling the Gospel story or sharing what they had to administer aid and relief to the people. If you stop right there, what did patience teach, that nothing was gain immediately but it took time.

With patience experience takes time. How to wait and not be frustrated, angry and full of all emotion can be life altering. People who know no different way of life experience no change in culture, but go live without a computer, or television for a week and just do something not normal like going to a park without convinces, or working on a project without the right supplies and you find something more about patiences, you either have it or you were lost long ago. Learn patience in situation you cause yourself is differnt then those situations caused by another, or another circumstances. Have a major storm and have to clean up, how much patience do you have.

How patience is God, when it comes to human desiring all but a relationship with him. How patience is God when it comes to sharing his love for man, despite their blindness to his power. God provides our food, our water in our land. He gives us rain so crops will grow and sunshine to warm the earth and to enable seeds to grow. Yet do we see God's power in these things. Without the right amount of sun or rain, the world would starve. Sometimes gardens fail, but does it mean all gardens fail, no some areas grow in abundance and give opportunity to share with their neighbor or to make themselves rich in the process. yet a day will come it be there turn to need food too. It is a cycle for farms, to grow and produce having to wait on the crop, only to have insects devour their paycheck at the end of the growing season, because there is no harvest. Yet all these things patience to try again and not to come back empty handed of food supply continues. It takes patience. Yet God has a reason for delays, for the lack of harvest, and the abundance of food supply. Does our nation and the world thank God for the abundance of God's provision.

Let us not fear what we can not change, but let us learn to strive in patience when it comes to sharing the Gospel of Jesus. Not to be concern how fast what we share takes time to minister to someone heart, or how fast it takes for God to work things out by His Spirit, just follow after Christ Spirit, for God has been patience for many centuries concerning his love to each generation. Each generation receiving that miracle of faith to all that will believe. When Christ came, he was a testimony of God's patience, as Christ taught others how to live, and to share the love of God and sharing wisdom. Yet his greatest story of patience is waiting 33 years to go to the cross to take on the suffering and payment for our sin.

God is patience and not sending His Son back to us, because his wrath is impeding. Yet we wait for the promise knowing God's patience runs short. The days are getting closer for when Christ will return as when he came the first time and waited to fulfill the promise of the gift of forgiveness of sin and eternal life. God is faithful to deliver his promise, if he delivered it with Christ coming as a baby to the cross, then he fulfillit from the resurrection to the time of Christ return.

Dear Heavenly Father, how patient you are with the people of the world, to be able to hear your word and not only hear but patience concerning them to receive it so it can grow in their heart. Be patience Lord for those who still will come at your knocking on their hearts door. In Jesus precious name, Amen.

Continual Scripture Study: 2 Peter 3:9-18 KJV
9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.
18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.