The Gentleman's Code: To Patience

My boys,

There is a kind of strength the world almost never applauds.

It makes no sound.

It wins no arguments.

It posts nothing.

It simply waits, and keeps its character while it does.

That strength is patience.

When I was younger, I believed patience was passive.

I thought it meant standing still.

Doing nothing.

Letting life happen to me while braver men went and took what they wanted.

I was wrong.

Patience is not the absence of action.

It is action without panic.

It is the discipline to keep planting when nothing has broken the soil yet.

Anyone can work hard for a week.

The test is whether you can work honestly for a year with nothing to show for it.

I have learned that most of what I ruined in my life, I ruined by being early.

Not by being wrong.

By being early.

I spoke before I understood.

I hired before I was ready.

I answered before I had listened.

I opened doors God had not opened yet, and then wondered why the rooms were empty.

Impatience rarely destroys a man in one moment.

It destroys him one rushed decision at a time.

I want you to understand something about time.

You will not always be able to choose your season.

You will only be able to choose who you are inside of it.

Winter is not a punishment.

It is a part of the design.

The oak does not apologize for the months it stands bare.

It is not failing.

It is rooting.

And when the wind finally comes for it — and the wind always comes — it holds, because it spent its quiet years going down instead of up.

Grow downward first.

The height will take care of itself.

I have prayed for many things in my life and received them years later than I asked.

For a long time that felt like silence.

Now I understand it was mercy.

God was not ignoring me.

He was preparing me.

Had He given me at twenty-five what I begged Him for, I would have lost it by thirty.

I did not yet have the character to carry it.

The waiting was not Him withholding the gift.

The waiting was Him building the man who could hold it without being crushed.

That is the part nobody tells you.

Sometimes the delay is the answer.

Patience with God is faith.

Patience with people is love.

Be slow with people, boys.

Everyone you meet is somewhere in a story you did not read the beginning of.

The man who is short with you may have buried someone this month.

The friend who has gone quiet may be ashamed of where he is.

Your mother, your brother, your wife one day — they will all have seasons where they are not their best selves.

Give them the same room God has given you.

You have been forgiven more slowly than you deserved and more completely than you earned.

Extend that.

And be patient with yourselves.

This one is harder.

You will be tempted to measure your life against men who are further along, and to call yourselves failures for being where you actually are.

Do not do that.

Comparison is impatience wearing a mask.

You are not behind.

You are simply not finished.

A gentleman also knows the difference between patience and passivity, and I need you to hear this clearly.

Patience is not tolerating what is wrong.

It is not staying silent while someone is harmed.

It is not calling cowardice "waiting on God."

Patience holds its temper.

It does not surrender its principles.

You can be slow to anger and still be immovable.

In fact, those are the men people trust — the ones who are hard to provoke and impossible to buy.

Here is what I have come to believe after all these years.

Almost everything good in my life took longer than I wanted.

The business.

The healing.

The peace.

The becoming.

And almost everything I lost, I lost by refusing to wait.

So build slowly.

Love steadily.

Pray without a deadline.

Keep your word in seasons where no one is checking.

The harvest is not on your schedule.

It never was.

But it is coming, and you will not be ashamed of who you were while you waited.

That is the whole thing, boys.

Be a man who can wait without becoming bitter, and act without becoming reckless.

Do that, and you will have something most men never hold.

Peace in the middle of an unfinished life.

I love you.

— Baba

The Gentleman's Code — To Patience

• Move slowly enough to hear God before you decide.
• Root down before you reach up.
• Never mistake delay for denial.
• Do the honest work in the seasons nobody applauds.
• Give people the room you were given.
• Refuse to be provoked; refuse to be bought.
• Keep your word when no one is checking.
• Do not measure your life against a man whose beginning you never saw.
• Be patient with what is unfinished — including yourself.
• Wait without bitterness. Act without panic.

Question:

What are you rushing right now because you are afraid that waiting means it will never come?

Moral:

A gentleman understands that patience is not standing still. It is staying faithful in the long quiet between the prayer and the answer.

Disclaimer:

This story reflects real experiences and philosophies behind Backyard Brew. It is shared to inspire perspective and intention.

Author:

R. Solace