Learning and Practicing Patience

I Thessalonians 5:14 “We urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone.”

We have all heard the famous saying or warning, “Don’t pray for patience.” This is the source of the encouragement to be careful what you pray for because you may get it. The distance between unrealistic expectations and real life almost necessitates learning the hard lessons of patience. In our fast moving world with lightening fast access to everything in the world, we have our patience tried many times every day.

The greatest lesson I learned about patience was in my early twenties. I wanted so badly to know God's will that I was really pushing and pulling to find out what my future would hold. Questions about schooling and ministry and marriage overwhelmed me to the point that I was almost immobilized just thinking every day about what the outcome of my life would be. Each day I would wake to the thought, “What area of my unfolding life will I get big answers to today?” This obsession was to such a degree that it affected my family relationships, my work, and my spiritual life.

I was so absolutely preoccupied with the big picture that I was totally missing all the snapshots of my everyday living. Days and weeks and even some months passed when I realized that I was not going to make anything happen in my life waiting for something to happen in my life. My life was passing away, while I was waiting for my future to begin. I decided that I must live in the here and now and really focus on today and even more so on the moment.

This change in my perspective so revolutionized my daily life that things began happening at an alarming rate. Before I knew it, my ministry was revealed, my schooling fell into place, and I met my wife. I really had to surrender it all and let God do things in His time.

I was tired of learning patience and started to practice it instead. Have you ever been waiting to cross a street where they have “Walk and Wait” flashing lights? Sometimes they have buttons that pedestrians can push to indicate your need to cross. I have often wondered how those work. If you push the buttons 50 times, does the light change faster, as if the mechanism thinks there are 50 individuals waiting to cross? Or if you push the button harder, does it register with the mechanism that you really, really want to cross? Or, are the buttons there just to teach us patience and give us something to do while we wait? Good questions huh?

Now, I take that time to pray, or to thank God, or to smell the roses, or look at the sky, or hug my wife, or sing. The time seems to go faster when I do. I have recently thought of how perfectly patient God must be with us. Can you imagine how he loves us so much? Sometimes the simplest lessons in life are the most profound. I hope you patiently take some time for yourself and God and to listen to what is going on around you and in you and through you.

Listen to each other and practice some real patience with each other. Be careful, because I know we don't like to have our buttons pushed too many times or too hard.

Thankful for His patience,
Pastor Fred

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