The strength that sustains waiting or patience is hope, and the power behind hope is the Word.

So how does the connection between hope and the Word help us fight impatience?

That's the question John Piper answers from Isaiah 30 in this episode of Light and Truth.

The sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on November 27, 1988.

Impatience is a form of unbelief.

It's what begins to rise in your heart when you begin to doubt the wisdom of God's timing

or the goodness of His guidance.

Springs up when the road to success gets muddy or gets boulders on it or a big tree falls across it and blocks it and cuts you off

from where you thought you should be or when you thought you should be there.

And the battle with impatience can be as small as a little skirmish in a slow checkout lane at the store.

Or it can be as big and massive a combat as when you have handicapped or a disease or a circumstance that cuts off half your dreams.

The opposite of impatience is not a glib superficial denial of frustration.

The opposite of impatience is a deepening, sweetening willingness to stand in the place that God has appointed or to move at the pace that God has appointed.

Maybe that will help you remember.

The opposite of impatience is the willingness to stand in His place and go at His pace.

Now when you plan your day out or plan your life out and it gets cut off in the middle or slowed or bogged down, the temptation of impatience moves in two directions.

Partly on your personality, which way you go, partly on circumstances, let me describe the two directions that impatience can push you.

One is to give up, to throw in the towel.

If this situation is going to be this hard, if I'm going to hit this many obstacles and have this much trouble, then you can stuff it.

I will keep teaching this class. I will rear this kid. I will stay in this marriage. I won't keep this job. I won't live this life.

Just give up. That's one way. The other way is almost exactly the opposite but it's the same thing. It's the same impatience.

Namely, rash counter moves, impetuousness, blundering ahead without consulting God. You run into a traffic jam, you've got two choices.

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