Long-suffering With God

The following is from Spiros Zodhiates' book To Love is to Live:

"We tend so often to grow impatient with God's methods of working.  We want results quickly and at any cost.  But if we are to work together with God, we shall need a great deal of patience.

"'You can hurry man,' said a bishop, 'but you cannot hurry God.'  He is patient because He is eternal.  Our love is long-suffering because it is His eternal love.

"He waits for the slow weaving in of all the strands of action in history.  He can wait for the storm of unbelief to blow itself out; He can wait for hunger and nakedness to do their work with the prodigal.

"And therefore to anyone who is working in God's way and demonstrates His eternal love, the Holy Spirit sheds abroad this fruit of long-suffering; otherwise in our restless hurry we might haply be found even to fight against God."