Love Expressed Through Patience

“Have you a soul as well as a body?”

“Yes, and my soul will never die.”

This simple catechism, learned from the lips of toddlers, is more than just a tool for teaching children it is a quiet and powerful truth that reorients our hearts as adults. It reminds us that every person we interact with, whether child, friend, neighbor, or stranger, carries within them an eternal soul.

And that reality changes everything. It calls us to patience. Because patience, in its truest form, is not just tolerance or good manners. Patience is love a love that values eternal souls more than temporary comfort or convenience.

Seeing the Soul Behind the Struggle

Why do we become so easily irritated with others? Because we forget their value. When people slow us down, interrupt our schedules, test our temper, or seem immature in their thinking, we often view them as obstacles to our own peace.

But Scripture teaches us to look deeper. People are not inconveniences they are immortal souls. And when we forget that, we don’t merely become impatient; we fail to love.

Paul reminds us of the essential nature of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4: “Love is patient.” That’s not a secondary attribute. It’s the first. If we are not patient with others, we are not truly loving them. To love well, we must see people in light of eternity.

God’s Patient Love Toward Us

God’s own love is marked by divine patience. Peter reminds the early believers of this in 2 Peter 3:8–9, writing, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

Some of the early church members were impatient with God Himself. Why hadn’t Jesus returned? Why wasn’t judgment falling on the wicked? Why was God delaying?

Peter’s answer is breathtaking: because God is focused not on time, but on souls. He waits because He loves. He withholds judgment because He is working salvation. This is the same God described in Exodus 34:6 as “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”

With God, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day (2 Peter 3:8). Our God doesn’t glance at the clock. He gazes at eternity. And if delaying wrath means one more soul finds repentance, He will wait.

Jesus Modeled This Patience

In the life of Jesus, we see divine patience wrapped in human flesh.

In Mark 10:17–22, a rich young man interrupts Jesus just as He’s setting out on a journey perhaps the worst time, humanly speaking, to be stopped. But Jesus doesn’t rush away. He doesn’t dismiss the question. Instead, He stops. He looks at the man. He listens. He speaks truth.

Even as the man persists in his self-confidence, Jesus doesn’t walk away. Mark records that “Jesus, looking at him, loved him” (v. 21). He saw past the man’s pride and into the needs of his soul. He saw the opportunity eternal and precious and He was willing to take the time.

Patience, again, is love.

Our Call to Patient Love

If we have received this kind of patient love from God, we are called to extend it to others.

Paul’s instructions in 1 Thessalonians 5:14 are practical and profound: “Admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.” Church life, as Paul knew well, is filled with people at every stage of growth immature, inconsistent, struggling, needy. But rather than giving up on them or growing frustrated, we’re called to love with patience.

He grounds this command in family terms: “brothers and sisters.” In the church, we’re not business partners or mere acquaintances we’re family. And love in the family of God requires endurance. We bear with one another, point each other to Christ, and extend grace that flows from the grace we’ve received.

Worth Every Minute

Let’s be honest: people can be slow to change. They can be difficult to teach, hard to serve, and exhausting to love. But their souls are eternal. And that makes every effort worth it.

A 2022 Pew Research study found that over 60% of U.S. adults still believe in some form of eternal life after death. Yet in our fast-paced world, it’s easy even for Christians to live as if time is our most precious resource. Scripture says otherwise. Time is a tool, not a treasure. People are the treasure.

Another study found that the average person loses 26 minutes per day to interruptions that’s over six full days a year. But what if some of those interruptions are actually invitations? Invitations to show patient love. Opportunities to reflect Christ. Moments designed by God for someone’s eternal good.

The world may not notice when we pause in kindness. But heaven might.

Loving as We’ve Been Loved

Christ’s patience with us should change how we treat others. We were not easy to love. We resisted grace. We clung to sin. We tested God’s patience every hour of every day. And still, He pursued us. He waited. He forgave. He stayed.

Romans 2:4 asks us, “Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” If God’s patience led us to salvation, might not our patience be used by Him to draw others as well?

So let us be slow to anger. Let us set down our schedules when someone needs a moment of grace. Let us remember the souls around us in our homes, churches, and neighborhoods and love them with patience.

If we can do good to someone, we can afford to be patient. Their souls are worth as long as it takes.

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