My ego hurt, but my knee and hand hurt worse as two people ran by me and asked, “Are you okay?”
“I just tripped,” I replied, holding back the tears. “Just having a bad day.”
I’ve stumbled a few times while running in the past, but until today, never actually fell. This time I hit the ground hard. I tore up my knee and sprained my hand. The incident seemed like the perfect way to cap off 2025.
December went rather poorly for me, so as the new year crept nearer, I retreated into myself, feeling rather cynical. I didn’t want to engage in the festivities. My year was ending badly, so why should I get excited about a new one? The day I fell, I had planned a 5 mile run to clear my head. After the two people went by, I sat there and had a good cry. Though I eventually finished my run, emotional and physical pain enveloped me.
Caught up in the buzz of our society’s end-of-the-year challenges such as taking time to reflect on 2025 and coming up with resolutions and a “word of the year” for 2026, I found myself in an even worse mood. I resisted these activities strongly. However, the more I resisted the start of the new year, the more I prayed about my circumstances. The more I prayed, the more I felt God pulling me out of myself and calling me towards engaging in these new year’s traditions. So, I took some time to journal, reflect, and look ahead.
As much as I didn’t want a word-of-the-year because I tended to forget about it after a few months, God put on my heart the word “patience.” I found him encouraging me to be patient while he works through my circumstances. He impressed upon me strongly that I needed to actively pursue patience in order to get through the hard things I am going through. In that call for patience, God gave me a resolution–to write in my prayer journal at least once a week so he can show me the fruit of my being patient.
Defining Patience
The Greek word, hypomonē, according to Strong’s dictionary, means “steadfastness, constancy, or endurance.” Strong’s shared a wonderful description of the word in its outline for Biblical usage:
In the [New Testament] the characteristic of a man who is not swerved from his deliberate purpose and his loyalty to faith and piety by even the greatest trials and sufferings.
Patience means to continue on toward the goal with “deliberate purpose,” rather than sitting around and waiting for things to happen. By definition, God calls us to stay the path as we trust in him to work all things out for our good and, ultimately, his glory. Commentator David Guzik says of this specific word,
This word does not describe a passive waiting but an active endurance. It isn’t so much the quality that helps you sit quietly in the doctor’s waiting room, as it is the quality that helps you finish a marathon.
David Guzik
I think this is one reason why God impressed on me to be more diligent in writing in my prayer journal–he wants me to keep moving forward in my trial. God wants me to remember where I started and to see how far he’s taken me.
Role Models of Patience
The Bible is full of people who are role models of patience. Patience is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, so it just makes sense that God would show us how to recognize that fruit.
Jesus Christ
The ultimate example of patience is Jesus Christ himself. He patiently endured ridicule, torture, and being hung on a cross to perfection. No one has been or ever will be as faultless as Jesus.
Abraham
While Abraham faltered at times, he is ultimately known for his faith. Having faith takes patience. God promised Abraham that he would have a son and that he would be the father of many nations. He promised Abraham a land for his nations to reside in. These promises took many years to come to fruition, but God delivered in a big way! (See Genesis chapters 12-25)
Sarah
Alongside her husband, Sarah also had to be patient. Being unable to bear children is a hard thing to live through. But imagine being told that you are going to have a child when your body is no longer in that season of life. No wonder she laughed when she finally conceived! From conception to childbirth, having a baby requires a lot of patience, especially when you have to wait years for your dream to come true.
Noah
From the several years it took to build the ark to waiting for the rain to come and the months on board ship waiting for the waters to subside, Noah certainly required patience. He’s a really great example of someone who stayed the course and continued working toward a goal while waiting on God for something to happen.
Job
God specifically allowed Job to suffer to demonstrate his steadfastness of faith. No matter how bad his life got, Job hung in there and defended his faith. James, brother of Jesus, remembers Job this way:
Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
James 5:11 (ESV)
Timothy
Paul’s disciple, Timothy, may not be the first person you think of when you consider patient people from the Bible, but if you read 1 and 2 Timothy, you will see that Paul points out his patience quite specifically. When I read these verses, I was really encouraged!
Paul urges Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:11, “But as for you, O man of God…Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.” Then, in Paul’s next letter to Timothy, 2 Timothy 3:10, Paul tells him, “You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness.” Paul very clearly gives Timothy a direction to be steadfast (which is the same Greek word for “patient”) and then writes again to praise Timothy for doing just that. My prayer is that God would commend me likewise.
Paul
If you read Acts and Paul’s letters to the churches, you will find that Paul will not encourage others to do anything that he wasn’t himself pursuing. So, when he told Timothy to pursue steadfastness, he did so right along with him. He endured ridicule, torture, and imprisonment among other horrible things and yet he continued to visit with and write to his disciples all over the world. He even had a personal “thorn in the flesh” given to him by God and that just made him ever more grateful for his weaknesses.
Christians Are Encouraged to be Patient
Throughout Scripture, God calls his people to be patient. Look at our role models for patience, for example. God called each of them specifically to need patient endurance. This truth still applies to us today as Paul, Peter, and James consistently teach the need for patience in their letters to the churches (which applies to all Christians today).
Paul’s letter to the Romans, for example, is filled with the need for patience for believers. One of my favorite chapters I gravitate towards when I’m going through a hard time is Romans 5.
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Romans 5:3-5 (ESV)
The word, “endurance” in this passage is the same, hypomonē, or patience.
Another of my favorite chapters in the Bible on enduring hard times is James 1.
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
James 1:2-4 (NKJV)
Another passage that has really made me think is from the Apostle Peter, who I greatly admire. He stuck with Jesus through thick and thin, and like many of Jesus’s original disciples, died for his faith.
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.
2 Peter 1:5-9 (ESV)
Steadfastness in this passage is the same, hypomonē, or patience.
Patience is a Basic Need
Not only are we asked by God to have patience, we actually need patience in order to endure life’s challenges. We all face challenges in this life, some bigger than others. Patience is faith in action–the thing that sees us through our trials.
Trials don’t produce faith, but when trials are received with faith, it produces patience. Yet patience is not inevitably produced in times of trial. If difficulties are received in unbelief and grumbling, trials can produce bitterness and discouragement. This is why James exhorted us to count it all joy. Counting it all joy is faith’s response to a time of trial.
I know that I am going to make it through the trial I am facing right now. I’ve survived much worse. I think that’s why God has impressed on me the need for patience in this season. I’m curious to see how my prayer journaling will reveal God’s work of patience in my life over 2026.
How is God calling you to be patient in this season of your life?
Bethany Marinelli is an author and speaker out of Orlando, Florida. She also supports her husband, Andrew, in his auto repair business and homeschools her son, Arthur.
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