Want to Be a Patient Mom? Look to Jesus
“I’m not exactly sure what a patient parent looks like,” my friend told me. “My home growing up was so tense. I never knew when my parents were going to explode. Now, I struggle to know how to be patient with my kids.”
Like my friend, many of us feel the lack of role models as we seek to practice patience. If we haven’t had a patient mother, a patient neighbor, a patient teacher, or a patient employer, it’s hard to know how to be patient when we assume those roles ourselves.
Thankfully, God hasn’t left us without an example. In sending the Son to take on human flesh, to live a life of perfect obedience, and to die a sinless death on the cross, he gave us the greatest—and most helpful—example of patience we could ever want. As we seek to cultivate patience in our own lives, we can begin by looking to Christ.
Jesus Was Tempted to Impatience Too
Peter wrote to a church that included moms, dads, and kids: “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. . . When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.” (1 Pet. 2:21, 23).
We see, first, that, as a human person living in a fallen world among sinful people, Christ knew all the struggles of life. Like us, he was tired (Matt. 8:24), hungry (Matt. 4:2), and thirsty (John 19:28). He had to bear patiently with accusing Pharisees, slow-witted disciples, and unjust government rulers. He, like us, was tempted to give up and to lash out. Wherever you struggle, Christ has been there before you.
Jesus Shows Us What Patience Looks Like
Peter’s words also tell us that Jesus sets us an example in how he responded to mistreatment: “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten.” Every day, in every kind of circumstance, Christ was patient.
He didn’t default to anger when his disciples failed to pay attention, didn’t complain when he had to repeat himself to them, and didn’t carry a grudge when they acted selfishly and immaturely. Like a patient parent, Jesus’s every response to his disciples was gentle and kind.
Even in his most extreme suffering, Jesus acted with perfect patience: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth” (Isa. 53:7).
Jesus Was Patient Because He Had Hope
Finally, Peter’s letter reveals the foundation for Jesus’s patience: he clung to hope. In the ordinary sufferings of daily life on earth, and in the extraordinary suffering of his atoning death on the cross, Christ did not succumb to impatience because he “continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.”
We have the same hope. One day, God will judge all wrongs, set all things right, restore what has been lost, and renew what has been damaged.
Dear Christian moms, in Jesus, we have a perfect example of patience. Although we may not have had great role models for patience in our past, we have Christ walking ahead of us now. Like a hiking partner who stomps down the deep snow or holds back the branches ahead of us, Jesus has gone before us on the path to patience.
What’s more, he is ready to forgive us when we stumble, and he urges us toward the day when the Lord will make us—and all things—new.
Follow in his steps.
Patience: Waiting with Hope by Megan Hill (P&R, October 2021) is a 31-day devotional designed to help Christians seeking to grow in the grace of patience. This article is adapted from the book. Used by permission.
