Patience: Love’s Unfolding Presence

By Andrew DeCort

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You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life, 

for hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our world today. 

(Dallas Willard)

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In his book Nonviolent Communication, Marshall Rosenberg tells the story of working with a 20-year-old woman who was brought to his office for counseling. She had recently been discharged from the hospital after undergoing heavy medication and shock therapy. She hadn’t spoken for three months and wouldn’t move on her own.

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When the first session began, she sat motionless in her chair and stared at the floor. Rosenberg asked her if she was afraid and needed time to feel safe before she could talk. She didn’t reply. He continued asking her empathetic questions and expressing his own feelings and needs. But she made no sign that she was even listening for the next forty minutes. 

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Two more sessions transpired like this.

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In the fourth session, she still didn’t respond to Rosenberg’s gentle inquiries. He then reached out and simply held her hand. At first, she became tense and shrank in her chair. But slowly, her hand relaxed. Even so, she didn’t say a word.

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In their fifth session, she still didn’t make eye-contact with Rosenberg. But she did extend her fist. Confused, he reached out and held it. Eventually, she opened her fist and dropped a note into his hand. It said, “Please help me say what’s inside.” Still, the rest of the hour passed without her speaking.

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In their sixth session, she said her first sentence out loud. Slowly, she began to speak.

A year later, this woman shared with Rosenberg that the shock therapy and strong medication had left her mind feeling blank. But his presence in those first five sessions made her feel cared for. With time, she felt safe to communicate “things that I would never have dreamed of telling anyone.” In the process, she discovered that she could face reality and experience healing.  

This story offers a moving illustration of patience.

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Rosenberg was willing to sit and listen with this woman for over five hours before she felt safe to say a single word. His unrushed presence allowed her to open up in a way she feared was impossible. Eventually, she identified her need and slowly began to “say what’s inside.” Simply being with her allowed her to be and invited her to become.

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After two or three sessions without any response, it would be easy to imagine Rosenberg pressuring her to speak rather than pivoting to name his own discomforts with feeling powerless. He could have put the spotlight on diagnosing her “problems” and warning about the negative implications if she didn’t get with the program. Of course, he could have simply stopped seeing her altogether or suggested another round of extreme interventions to “fix” her.

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Instead, Rosenberg stayed with her in her uncomfortable silence. He vulnerably shared his own feelings. And, together, this unrushed presence allowed her the space and time she needed to take her next step to freedom, however finite. Slowly, slowly, she wrote a note. Then extended her fist. And then said out loud what was inside.

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This is the paradoxical power of patience. Patience surrenders rush and accepts the time that’s needed. It resists using force and allows unfolding. Pausing the reactive impulse to push or punish in the face of frustration, it moves at the trusting pace of love. In this way, patience is the partner of our freedom.

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Mindfulness teachers echo the patience that Rosenberg and this woman practiced together. Sharon Salzberg describes patience as “allowing ourselves to be fully present, even when things are not going our way.” Jon Kabat-Zin says that patience “demonstrates that we understand and accept the fact that sometimes things must unfold in their own time.” He teaches patience as a skill that we can develop through the practice of STOP: stop, take a breath, observe, and proceed mindfully.

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If we think of God primarily as an all-powerful Ruler, this practice of patience may seem unbefitting or even offensive to God. Who more than an omnipotent Boss could be entitled to bypass “STOPping” for lightning speed, irresistible force, and exacting punishment when things don’t go the deity’s way? Make it happen. Do it now. Or else.

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But our concepts of God are often mistaken and can be harmful. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul wrote that patience is the fruit of God’s Spirit (5:22). The Greek word Paul uses literally means “long-temperedness” (makrothymos). This full presence even in frustration is the organic evidence of divine presence. Let it unfold. It takes time. I’m with you. Tertullian (160-240 AD), an early Christian theologian from North Africa, wrote, “Patience is God’s nature.”  

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Perhaps Paul’s own story roots why he saw patience as divine. Looking back on his life, Paul wrote, “[God] set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace.” Still, Paul spent many years advancing deep into religious extremism. In his zeal, he oversaw the brutal execution of a Christian rival and organized a terrifying campaign to stamp out the movement Jesus started. Decades unfolded before Paul himself unexpectedly met Jesus. And even then, Paul disappeared into the wilderness and remained “unknown” for years (Galatians 1:15-22). God may have called Paul from before his birth, but the call’s unfolding showed little sign of hurry, much less perfection.    

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History itself whispers revelations of God’s long-tempered patience. Our universe doesn’t appear in a flash; it unfolds over billions of years. Our humanity doesn’t arrive overnight; it evolves across millennia. And each of our lives, from our fetal origins to the unfurling of our personhood, requires much time and tenderness to develop. All throughout, delays and disasters, imperfections and griefs, may punctuate the story.

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After his untimely conversion, Paul wrote, “one God and Father of all is over all and through all and in all.” Like Rosenberg with his client, Paul envisions God as present with all, witnessing us but unrushed in inviting reality into freedom. No wonder Paul prefaced his vision of God with the summons, “be patient, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2, 6).

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If Paul is right about God being “through all and in all,” perhaps God’s apparent non-intervention in the painful unfolding of our lives isn’t proof of divine absence. Perhaps it’s the mystery of a loving presence so patient that we easily perceive it as nothing at all.  

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Our short-tempered age idolizes the instantaneous, uninterrupted, and inerrant—a world in which patience is unnecessary. And who would belittle these modern blessings? I don’t. Still, God’s is the way of patience, however baffling—slow, unfolding, accepting of imperfection. The divine path is oriented in an everlasting time-scale of freedom that we can hardly imagine but ultimately calls us home.  

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Perhaps in the end, with the patience of God’s presence, we will all be able to say what’s inside.

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