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| Psalm 37:7-9 Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act. Don’t worry about evil people who prosper or fret about their wicked schemes. Stop being angry! Turn from your rage! Do not lose your temper—it only leads to harm. For the wicked will be destroyed, but those who trust in the Lord will possess the land |
I’ve given some thought to what patience and impatience
really boils down too. To be patient
means that you are trusting God completely and waiting for His timing and not
just knowing this truth BUT living it out with waiting and peace. Impatience means that you really believe that
you could do a better job than God and although you may say you believe and
trust in God’s plan, impatience is the proof that you
don’t trust Him as you should.
I closed my eyes the other day while reflecting on patience and
this is the image that I saw. Patience feels like being on a raft in the ocean unable
to see the shoreline from any direction but knowing the waves both slowly and
surely are taking you where you belong. You don’t necessarily have to like the
wait but just trust the waiting is part of getting there in God’s timing. When you lose your patience it’s as if an
eruption of fury inside of you comes out like fire from the mouth and in the
middle of the ocean you lose your cool
and erupt causing you to set your raft on fire because it’s not getting you to
the shore fast enough. Then there you are left to swim on your own wishing you
hadn’t lost patience and set fire to
your raft. The entire time you are
waiting, you have a huge weight on
yourself. You can’t rest otherwise now
you’ll drown. You are tired, weary and
bitter but there is hope. If you have
lost your patience, you can’ t get your
raft back on this trip but if you cry out to God to help, He will send you a
life preserver. And next time when your
patience is tested, if you sigh real big and say “here we go again. Might as
well enjoy the ride” peace and tranquility come in and even though being on the
raft might not be your favorite place to be you know the wait will produce you
to easily show up to the shore where your answer awaits from God. Impatience is our way of not trusting God,
believing we could do better on our own rather than waiting for God’s vessel to
get us there with His peace and tranquility.
I now understand why
patience is so important. Being patient
is more than being quiet and sitting in the waiting room of life, it shows
tremendous trust and shows that you truly believe God’s ways and God’s plans
for your life are better than you can do. Impatience comes over us because we feel a loss
of control and believe we could do a better job than God. Have you ever noticed when you pray for
patience all you get is more trying times that make you exercise your
patience? That is because patience can
only come from a heart that believes God’s in control and He knows best. Sometimes it takes many trials and loss of
patience to see the true meaning behind
what patience represents.
I feel so challenged by God to really look at my impatient
outbursts. When my time frame doesn’t match
up with His how do I react? When it took
6 months to buy this house my reaction
came from feeling out of control and not truly trusting. I nearly drowned trying to get there my way
but when I asked for that life preserver, He provided. While waiting for a job, I stayed on the raft
longer than I usually do but I still had an outburst or two and tried things in
my own hands and again had to ask for a life preserver! What I really want! What I really strive for
is to stay on the raft next time! “I TRULY MUST, TRULY TRUST! “ is what I’ll tell myself when I am about to
lose my cool! We all struggle with impatience and if we truly believe God is in control of everything including traffic that drives us crazy then we must trust his time clock called patience. We can't look at our watch and calendars. Our watches and calendars should just be called "impatience". It won't be in our methods of time, it will be in His. Patience shows trust! Want people to believe you Trust God? Then show them some patience!
I know just from writing this today, I am going to have a lot of tests on patience come up! I may fail a few, get a "C" by the world's standards but God knows my heart and He knows I want to change. He'll keep throwing the tests at me and given me the lessons. He'll make the tests harder than I can handle but all I have to do is raise my hand and He'll help me with it! To many of us think we have to take the tests alone but His tests are open book and you can ask questions. The answers though only come in His time so you have to wait which in itself is just another test of patience!
I know just from writing this today, I am going to have a lot of tests on patience come up! I may fail a few, get a "C" by the world's standards but God knows my heart and He knows I want to change. He'll keep throwing the tests at me and given me the lessons. He'll make the tests harder than I can handle but all I have to do is raise my hand and He'll help me with it! To many of us think we have to take the tests alone but His tests are open book and you can ask questions. The answers though only come in His time so you have to wait which in itself is just another test of patience!
