Patience is a redundant virtue: Amazon Prime and the Present BiasJosh Rous - 22 Apr 2016

Can a virtue become redundant? Can the world outgrow a Fruit of the Spirit?

If that’s true of anything, it’s true of patience. We just don’t need it anymore.

Amazon has just started a new one-hour delivery service for its Prime customers in the UK. You can order a laptop at 3 o’clock and have it in your hand by 4 o’clock without having left your chaise longue.

Is there anything particularly wrong with this? (the courier might have an opinion here)

With fast food, video on demand and FaceTime, we’re just cutting out time wastage. If advancement is removing all ‘wasted time’ then surely utopia has no place for patience...

We have an insatiable desire for instant gratification. The so-called ‘present bias’ drives us to put off unpleasant tasks and pursue immediate pleasures, acting with preference for small gains in the immediate over big gains in the long term.

So this makes the idea of a one-hour delivery very attractive.

But it means something else...

It means we stop doing one thing: savouring what we have

Researchers have concluded that one of the keys to happiness is an appreciation of the good things that happen in life. It’s taking the time to stop what you’re doing and making note of the good around you; appreciating what you hear, see and taste, solid friendship, God’s blazing goodness.

It’s savouring a slice of pizza, pepperoni by pepperoni, rather than gulping it down. It’s watching each episode of a series once a week rather than binging on Netflix. It’s enjoying the birdsong in your garden while you wait for a ‘5-7 business days’ Amazon delivery.

Patience leads to gratitude and gratitude leads to happiness, fulfilment and flourishing.

It’s no surprise to Christians that gratitude is central to a sense of fulfilment. As the Psalmist writes: ‘Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name’ (100:4).

But Christians are no masters in this area. Giving thanks to God can quickly become a dry, meaningless routine and, if you want to see a bunch of burnt out workaholics, visit your local church.

The fact is that human patience is elastic. We will always want things to happen faster so we can satisfy our desire for instant gratification, but we can train ourselves into a healthier rhythm of life.

You can take back control of your life by stepping out of the speed frenzy of the workaholic and the instant-gratificationalist, and being willing to waste time and enjoy life. It doesn't have to be a literal stepping out. God isn't only found in the ruins of old monasteries, by the sides of a babbling brook or in fields of barley just after sunrise; He’s in our cities, in our meetings, on our campuses - the still, small voice beneath the noise.

Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him

Psalm 37:7

Spend time with God when you don’t have the time and give yourself space to be genuinely grateful for the glory in the details of life.

So often the time that feels wasted is the time best spent.

Visit patience-is-a-virtue.org for some great tips on overcoming the present bias.