Patience/Endurance

And finally, perhaps least obviously, is the lesson of patience. This isn’t specifically referred to in the narrative, but it is an essential component of the story, the dreams, and their fulfilment.

Patience is only cultivated by waiting, by time. There is no shortcut, no way to compress time when you are waiting. The cultivation of patience is an antidote to the rush of human impatience - we just don’t like waiting. But waiting produces perseverance, something highly prized in the New Testament, something that allows time for the faithfulness of God to be experienced and cultivates faithfulness in our souls. These things matter, which is a wonder that so little attention is given to patience - this is to our detriment. Patience enables us to slow the internal anxiety, resulting in peace. We learn to process with clarity, and we see more clearly when endurance informs us. But endurance is the result of … endurance.

A core element in the Beatitudes is patience. Nearly, if not, all nine of the blessed sayings assume time and patience. There is no quick fix here, no simple transactional faith that is common to the modern church. In Joseph’s case, the coming famine was the reason for Joseph’s journey to Egypt, but numerous chess pieces had to be in place before his reason for being incarcerated in Egypt made sense. These included being all but executed for allegedly raping Potiphar’s wife and imprisoned in the king’s prison, the dreams of the cupbearer and the baker being interpreted, Pharoah having his dreams, and the cupbearer remembering his dream was correctly interpreted by Joseph, and Pharaoh calling for Joseph. Nothing could have hurried the process along. He couldn’t and God didn’t. But in the process God was working in Joseph, to will and to do his good pleasure.[1]

After the cupbearer and the baker were released from jail it was two long years before Pharaoh had his dreams of a devastating famine.[2] These two years must have weighed heavily on Joseph. His dreams must have seemed further than ever from being realised; it is possible he even forgot them because we read that his family was all but, if not completely, forgotten by him.[3]

Patience is a virtue that figures highly in the New Testament, but it is often the forgotten virtue because there is little you can do to hasten it, except to be patient. One New Testament scholar, Alan Kreider, proposes it was what he called the Patient Ferment of the Early Church that had such a definitive influence on the spread of the gospel, improbably so, in the Roman Empire – without centralised organisation, programs, presentations, mass evangelism, etc. He maintains the deliberate and localised catechism-based discipling of Christ followers is what changed the world. It was a slow journey, one with backward and forward momentum, but one with inevitable triumph. It may have appeared ponderous, even unlikely, but this reliance on the cardinal virtue of the early church – patience – is a clue to the rise of Christianity when all other movements, rebellions, conquering powers, etc., rely on brute force.[4]

Joseph was schooled by time and difficulty – patience was his reward – the saving of God’s people the effect. Think what great effect patience can work in your life.

[1]Philippians 2.13

[2]Genesis 41.1 “After two whole years …”

[3]Genesis 41.50-52

[4]Kreider, Alan, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbably Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire.Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2016.