Bible verses about patience: 18 passages for when waiting wears you down

Wait patiently for the LORD; be strong and courageous. Wait patiently for the LORD!

David says it twice, the way you repeat something to yourself when it is hard to believe. Waiting and courage are paired, because waiting well takes nerve.

For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. I waited patiently for the LORD; He inclined to me and heard my cry. He lifted me up from the pit of despair, out of the miry clay; He set my feet upon a rock, and made my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD.

In Hebrew the first line is literally waiting, I waited: a long, stubborn wait. The rescue and the new song come after it, not instead of it.

The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

Written in the ruins of Jerusalem. Waiting quietly here is not passivity; it is refusing to give up on God while nothing has changed yet.

But those who wait upon the LORD will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.

Notice the order: fly, run, walk. Sometimes the renewed strength is simply enough to keep walking without fainting.

For the vision awaits an appointed time; it testifies of the end and does not lie. Though it lingers, wait for it, since it will surely come and will not delay.

This is God’s reply to a prophet who opened his book by asking how long. The answer is not a date, but an assurance that it will come.

A man’s insight gives him patience, and his virtue is to overlook an offense.

Patience grows from insight: understanding what is really going on with someone. Overlooking an offence is called a virtue (a glory, in the KJV), not a weakness.

with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,

Paul calls himself a prisoner in the verse before. He was learning patience in a cell while asking others to practise it at home.

And we urge you, brothers, to admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, and be patient with everyone.

Different people need different things: a warning, encouragement, a hand. The one thing everyone needs from you is patience.

The end of a matter is better than the beginning, and a patient spirit is better than a proud one. Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger settles in the lap of a fool.

A proud spirit wants it settled now. The Teacher warns that anger which moves in quickly tends to stay.

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, persistent in prayer.

Three short commands that hold each other up. Hope makes patience possible, and prayer keeps both alive.

Not only that, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

Perseverance is not the goal; it is a stage. Suffering endured with God grows into character, and character into hope.

Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer awaits the precious fruit of the soil—how patient he is for the fall and spring rains. You, too, be patient and strengthen your hearts, because the Lord’s coming is near.

In Israel the early rains came in autumn and the late rains in spring. A farmer could plant, but he could not make it rain.

Let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Written about doing good, the kind that goes unnoticed. The harvest has its own season, and it is not the same as the planting.

Then the LORD passed in front of Moses and called out: “The LORD, the LORD God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness,

God describes himself this way right after the golden calf. Slow to anger is literally long of nose in Hebrew, a picture of anger that takes a long time to flare. The line is echoed across the Old Testament.

The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise as some understand slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance.

What looks like delay is mercy. God’s patience is making room for more people to come home.

But for this very reason I was shown mercy, so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display His perfect patience as an example to those who would believe in Him for eternal life.

Paul, who once persecuted the church, calls himself the proof of Christ’s patience. If there was room for him, there is room for you.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

The King James says longsuffering, which captures the Greek well: long-tempered, the opposite of short-tempered. It is fruit, grown by the Spirit, not forced by willpower.