Prayer for Patience + How to Cope as You Wait on God

Patience was never my strong suit.

As a perfectionist who had trouble not trying to control all. the. things, I always struggled when other people, circumstances beyond my control (sickness, weather, etc.), or even God messed up my plans. I wanted things done in my time and in my way, and couldn’t rest until I had it.

That was until one day, I prayed my very first prayer for patience.

On a day when my daughter was in the thick of the terrible twos, my husband was pushing his luck, and my dog had just thrown up onto our shag carpet, I clenched my fists and imagined myself screaming and stomping around the room…then quickly realized the results of those actions would make everything worse. So instead, I whispered a prayer for patience.

“God, my patience is dried up. I want to scream. Please…walk me through this, help me to find the patience I need for myself and my family.”

No, I didn’t immediately smile, quote Scripture, and start picking up my house like Mary Poppins…but I didn’t scream either. Instead, God whispered to my heart where to start, softened my anger, and helped me to reconcile with the child I wanted to flee just moments prior.

So I kept praying for patience! In fact, I started praying for all of the fruits of the Spirit.

Sometimes God answered my prayer by softening my heart, reminding me to breathe, and pointing out the good in every situation. And sometimes God answered my prayer for patience by handing me situations that pushed my patience to its max and tested my resolve. I hate when He does that.

But no matter His approach, as I’ve repeated my prayer for patience, He has transformed me into a person the old me wouldn’t recognize. I’m now able to tackle the most stressful situations with patience and grace, to think clearly despite whatever emotions I might be experiencing, and to make very conscious choices based on what’s best for the future rather than what feels best in the moment.

What’s the best way to pray to experience a transformation of your own? Let’s talk about it!

Examples of Prayers For Patience

Daily Prayers For Patience

The best way to be transformed through prayer is to lift your request to God every single day. This not only demonstrates its importance to you, but also keeps the topic top of mind (and heart).

Try something like:

Heavenly Father, when I feel rushed or annoyed, please remind me to take a deep breath. Help me to consider things from other people’s perspectives. Please give me the patience to pause to listen before jumping to conclusions. Help me to react with kindness rather than anger, assuming the best of others. O Lord, I know that patience is a fruit of the spirit, and it’s one I need in my life. I ask you to help me cultivate it. In Jesus’ name, amen.

In the Heat of the Moment

That prayer feels warm and fuzzy, right? I prayed a similar prayer every morning, before my family woke up and any chaos could ensue.

While it’s crucial to engage in focused, daily prayers for patience, my first prayer for patience came at a moment when I needed immediate help.

Obviously, you may not have the time or mental clarity to recite an elaborate prayer in the heat of the moment. Lucky for us, God doesn’t need us to craft perfectly-worded prayers in order to hear or answer us.

That means that in your most stressful moments, your prayer for patience can be as simple as:

• Dear God, please help me to be patient with others, as You are patient with me.
• Dear Lord, please help me to let go of the things I can’t change or control. Teach me how to adapt.
• Dear God, I know that Your timing is perfect. Please help me to let go of my own way and timing. Help me to trust You.

Dealing with a more specific situation? You can pray for patience in any and every area of your life!

• Work stress: Dear Lord, please help me remain calm as deadlines loom.
• Family conflicts: Dear God, please give me the patience to love and show grace to my family, even when it’s hard.
• Traffic jams: Dear Lord, please help me use this time to reflect and be thankful, rather than to stress.

The fact is that patience is a form of love. When you pray for a more patient heart, you’re asking to show more love to others and yourself!

Integrating Patience into Your Prayer Life

Prayer is a practice of patience in several ways.

You bring your needs and concerns to God, then wait on God’s timing to answer your prayers. You rely on His wisdom and insight, and accept that His answer to your prayer might not always look like you imagined.

As you grow in patience in your daily prayers, it can change how you talk to God and what you ask for.

The Role of Patience in a Fruitful Prayer Life

But how can you cultivate that patience in your daily prayers?

First of all, make a conscious effort to slow down when you pray. Take deep breaths, pause between thoughts, and try to relax both your mind and body.

Sometimes we hurry through our prayers, spitting out a list of requests and then rushing off before God can answer us. By slowing down and quieting ourselves before our Heavenly Father, we allow more time and room to experience His presence.

Secondly, find a quiet place to pray, free from distractions. We read in the Bible that Jesus often broke away from His disciples to pray in calm, quiet settings.

So find a place where you won’t be distracted by people, screens, or even chores. (I can’t pray in the kitchen; it just reminds me of all the cooking and cleaning I need to do.) Your setting can either make it easier or make it harder to practice patience and focus in your prayers, so set yourself up for success!

And finally, choose patience when you pray. This means allowing your Heavenly Father time to work in your life, rather than making your request then rushing in to answer it in your own way and timing.

This often requires a fake-it-til-you-make-it approach, where you tell God you trust and will wait on His timing, even when everything within you is screaming for control. The more we speak it over ourselves and our situation, the more it becomes our reality.

Dangerous Prayers: Asking for Patience

Fair warning: Some people say asking God for patience is a “dangerous prayer” because it often leads you to challenges that test your patience. I experienced this myself, from an exhaustingly imaginative child, to my husband’s diagnoses, to my own health struggles, to stressors at work and home.

If you think about it, it makes sense.

If my daughter tells me she wants to get better at pickleball (she doesn’t just want to play with her Papa, she wants to beat him), I’m going to encourage her to practice her serves and volleys and perfect her aim. Of course, she would prefer to just wake up a pickleball master, and we would prefer to just wake up with endless patience. Wow! Thanks, God!

But because He’s a good Father, He doesn’t just consider our current circumstances but also has our future and our best interests in mind.

So when you pray for patience, be sure to prepare yourself for what might come next. God may place you in situations where you have to practice patience to help you grow in it.

Think of it like an exercise for your faith. Just as your muscles grow stronger with every workout, your patience will grow every time it’s tested.

Patience in Seeking God’s Help

But let’s be honest…waiting on God’s help can really test your faith, especially during times of uncertainty. That’s where prayer, Bible study, and trust will be key to helping you find peace.

The Power of Prayer for Patience

I don’t know about you, but I find that prayer changes my attitude. When I’ve spent time thanking God for everything He’s given me, bringing my stressors and concerns to Him, and thanking Him in advance for His help with it, my anxieties are laid to rest…at least for a while.

Prayer can also make you feel calmer, stronger, and more connected to God and His help, making it perfect for resetting your heart and mind in difficult times.

Now, I don’t personally encourage people to “listen for God speaking” in their prayer time. (I think this can be a dangerous practice when God’s “message” gets twisted up with our own thoughts and emotions, or doesn’t line up with the Bible.)

However, I like to ask God to bring solutions to my mind either during or after my prayer time. “God, if there’s something I need to do on my part to help this situation, please bring it to my mind.”

God has answered this prayer by bringing to mind a good approach to resolving issues, a Scripture that’s relevant to the situation, and even something my mom said 30 years ago, a little trick I hadn’t thought about since that ended up saving the day. Just be sure if you ask God to bring ideas to mind, you don’t immediately dive into a distraction (I’m looking at you, smartphones!) that could keep you from receiving it.

The Power of Bible Study

While prayer changes my attitude, reading the Bible changes my perspective while I wait on my Heavenly Father.

I read stories about others who were forced to practice patience (Joseph’s story is my favorite!) and realize I’m not alone. I read the teachings of Christ Jesus on patience and faith and feel refreshed by the reminder of my calling.

If you ever need help zooming out from your own life to a bigger and more meaningful perspective, the Bible offers one of the fastest ways to get there!

Trust in God’s Timing

Trusting God’s timing is hard. It’s helped me to meditate on Matthew 7:9-11 (ESV) while I wait:

Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

I know that I want good things for my daughter. And I choose every day to trust that God wants good things for me too. In fact, He wants the best things for us!

His plans might not match our expectations or timelines. But we can trust that He knows what’s best for us, even more than we do.

Try to look at waiting as a chance to grow. You can learn and get stronger during this time.

On the hard days, remind yourself of all the times God has helped you before. Running through a list of God’s goodness to me in the past always helps to boost my trust in my current situation.

Surround yourself with patient people too, rather than those who make you feel rushed and pressured. Their example can inspire you to keep trusting God’s timing.

Practical Steps to Cultivate Patience

Cultivating patience takes practice and intention.

Developing a Patient Heart Through Daily Prayers

Start every day with a prayer for patience.

Make a list of areas where you know you struggle with patience and bring them to God regularly. Ask Him to help you stay calm in difficult times.

Sprinkle shorter prayers throughout your day to help refocus and refresh your mind.

When stuck in traffic, you can pray, “Dear Lord, grant me patience.” At work, you can whisper, “Dear God, help me respond with grace.”

Set regular reminders on your phone to pause and pray. Even 30 seconds can reset your attitude!

Thank God for teaching you patience through daily challenges.

The Process of Patience in Daily Life

Putting patience into practice in small ways will help to build your patience over time.

When your to-do list feels overwhelming, take a deep breath. Tackle one task at a time.

While waiting in line at the post office, use the time to pray or run through a mental list of things you’re thankful for. Choose to view delays as chances to grow, rather than annoyances.

When others test your patience, pause before reacting. Count to ten or take a walk to cool down.

Reflect on your favorite Bible verses about patience during difficult times. Let God’s words guide your responses to life’s challenges.

Overcoming Impatience

Dealing with Impatience in Testing Situations

When life tests you, it’s easy to feel frustrated and irritable.

Try these tips for overcoming impatience in the heat of the moment:

• Take deep breaths.
• Count to ten slowly.
• Say a quick prayer for patience.
• Turn on your favorite song to help shift your mood.
• Remind yourself that you can’t control your circumstances but you can control how you react to them.
• Ask yourself: “Will this matter in a year?” Realizing the answer is no can help you let it go.

Considering Others: Love Keeps No Record of Wrongs

Being patient in traffic is one thing but being patient with others who may or may not be patient with you?! That’s a whole other ball game!

Keep these guidelines in mind as you navigate frustrating circumstances:

• Try to listen more than you speak.
• Offer help instead of criticism.
• Try to view things from the other person’s perspective.
• Reflect back on times they might have forgiven you and/or shown you patience.
• Forgive quickly and fully.
• Choose not to keep score of others’ mistakes.

By choosing to exercise patience with others, you’re doing more than showing them grace; you’re freeing yourself from anger and making room for peace and joy in your heart.

Biblical Insights on Patience

The Bible has a lot to say about patience! It teaches us to be patient in hard times and reminds us that our faith grows when we wait. 

Testing of Your Faith

What does the Bible say about patience? God’s Word reminds us that waiting is hard but good for us. 

James 1:2-4 says that when our faith is tested, it produces endurance. This means we get stronger when we wait.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds^, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Romans 5:3-4 agrees:

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces.

The Bible is full of reminders that God uses our most difficult times to help us grow in patience, strength, and faith.

God’s Word is also where we learn that patience is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23):

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

That means that the virtue of patience is a gift of the Holy Spirit

Examples of Patience in the Scripture

In James 5:7-11, James uses the examples of the prophets and Job to encourage those on their own patience-building journeys:

Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 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.

The prophets, inspired by God, spoke of things to come in the future. Some waited years to see those prophesies fulfilled while others never saw them fulfilled at all in their lifetime.

Job lost everything but remained faithful to God. When everything seemed hopeless, and even his own wife and friends told him to give up, he chose to wait on God’s help. 

Abraham waited years for God’s promise of a son to come true. Moses led the Israelites for 40 years in the desert, trusting God to bring them into the Promised Land. 

Even Christ Jesus had to exercise patience as He prayed before His death (Luke 22:42):

Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

While He would have preferred a different path, he chose instead to trust God’s plan.

These examples of patience in God’s Word can help inspire you in your own journey. Take a moment to read and reflect on these stories when you’re wrestling with impatience.

The virtue of patience is a fruit of the Spirit that requires constant attention. The fact is that difficult times will continue to show up throughout your life and every time, you’ll have to choose to trust God’s Word and rely on God’s help all over again.

But as you consistently repeat your prayer for patience, you’ll find you develop a more patient heart over time. Whether it’s through the testing of your faith, or a straight-up gift of the Holy Spirit, the power of prayer will transform you into a more patient person.

It’s sure to be a long journey, with lots of hard work at personal growth. But the value of patience…for your family, for yourself, for your future…is well worth the effort.

You’ve got this!

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