Patience

 

I’ve been reflecting on patience a lot recently.

In some contexts, I am very patient, but in others, wow, I’m not at all. Or, I’ll start thinking I’ve got the patience thing down, until something comes up and I realize maybe I’m not really patient at all.

            The good thing is, patience is a fruit of the spirit, so if you have the Holy Spirit in your heart, you have, not just patience, but access to supernatural patience the world cannot fathom or explain. It’s a part of your new identity in Christ.

            I think of patience as the ability to wait, see, and watch things unfold, to gain wisdom and perspective. When you’re patient you see patterns you wouldn’t otherwise have seen. You have a greater understanding of actions, reactions, motives. You’re gracious. You’re not in a hurry or a rush, but living in the moment. You are sensitive to see how the Lord is operating around you. And you are long-suffering, you are able to endure pain.

            So our culture is growing increasingly impatient in the world. And we know this, we know the speed of culture is increasingly fast paced, and that everything is catered towards instant gratification. And this all helps breed impatience. Think about it, what causes impatience is the thinking that the world revolves around me. So, if I have the wisdom to recognize the world does NOT revolve around me and my wants/needs/demands, I gain the ability to be patient when life does not go my way (which is when we really need it.) When I’m self-centered, consumed with my own “needs”, when things do not go according to my plans, they are annoyances. But, what if annoyances are meant to be an opportunity for God to move?

            When I’m patient, I’m waiting on God to move, and trusting His timing. Goodness that is so hard! I want to rush, to do things my way, to get it done the way I think is best, which actually shows that deep down, I’m not trusting that God knows best or that He will do what is best, I’m questioning His goodness and trustworthiness. When I think about it that way, wow, my impatience is revealing an idolatrous heart, putting my will on a pedestal instead of submitting to Christ’s will.

            I think about great art, and how the most beautiful artwork takes time to come into existence.  It took Michelangelo 4 years to complete the Sistine Chapel. I actually have been to see it, and I would say it’s definitely an amazing work… but yeah, think about how God is working in our lives to make something beautiful, it takes time. Especially when you consider the mess we all come from, cleaning it up is a process. So we need to be patient waiting on God’s hand in our lives and trust that His plan will bring about the most beautiful result, greater than what we could imagine.

            There’s so many things in my life I’d like to change that test my patience constantly. You know that saying, don’t pray for patience, like by praying for patience we’ll wind up bringing crazy problems on ourselves we wouldn’t have had otherwise? The more I reflect on it, the more I want patience, spirit-filled supernatural patience, because it magnifies Christ, and is a powerful witness in an increasingly impatient world. Maybe more trials would come my way, but if they led to opportunities to share the Gospel with unbelievers and see new people come to Christ, they would be worth it, hands down. So, I challenge you to pray for more patience, and see what ends up happening in your life. Write it down as a prayer request, so you can keep track of how God answers it over time, and you’ll be surprised and encouraged when you do reflect again in the future.