Being Patient in Your Relations with Others

THERE are other aspects of waiting. Waiting may well be the course of wisdom in one’s everyday relations with others. A young man may be courting a young lady. Either he or she may be hasty about getting married. But wisdom would indicate not hurrying matters unduly. Courting gives couples fine opportunities to get to know each other better and to adjust to each other. As has well been said, “Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.”

Then again, an employee may be very industrious and ambitious for advancement. Here again, instead of chafing impatiently, would it not be better to make the best of all opportunities that lie before one to prove one’s worth and to increase one’s skills? It often happens that when one no longer frets and chafes but becomes content, then a change for the better takes place.

Patiently waiting is also the course of wisdom in the family circle. Business matters, or other circumstances over which he may have no control, such as heavy traffic, may make a husband late in coming home. Instead of fretting impatiently, how much better for his wife to give him the benefit of the doubt!

On the other hand, in certain matters the wife may show herself slow, requiring the husband to learn to wait patiently. Being angry will not help. He may be able to help her to organize her affairs so as to be more punctual. But, when the schedule does not work as planned, rather than chafe impatiently, how much better for the husband to heed the advice of the apostle Peter and ‘deal with his wife according to knowledge, assigning her honor as to a weaker vessel, the feminine one.’​—1 Pet. 3:7.

Or it may be that a fellow Christian alongside whom you are obliged to serve has a weakness that grates on you and of which he might not even be aware. Or he may repeatedly trespass, requiring you to forgive him, as it were, “seventy-seven times.” Here again it is well to learn to wait and have patience with him. He may not be making as rapid progress as you would like to see, but with the years there may be progress nevertheless. Also here God’s Word has wise counsel, namely, ‘with long-suffering put up with one another in love.’​—Matt. 18:21, 22; Eph. 4:2, 3.

Truly it is the course of wisdom to learn to wait patiently. It results in benefits to ourselves and to those about us. Jehovah God has his laws governing the universe, and he has his own timetable for fulfilling his purposes. He will not change his timetable to suit us, any more than we can cause him to change or hasten the days, seasons and years. Faith, hope, joy and appreciation will enable us to follow the wise course of learning to wait patiently.