Patience Please
All my life I’m waiting
For one thing or another
Patience is my lesson
And time is my mother
~ Waiting Part One from Fearless Moral Inventory by Juliet A. Wright
copyright 2010, all rights reserved
One of my biggest defects of character is impatience.
To me, patience means that I’m willing to wait for what I want or need. Impatience means that I want what I want right now and don’t ever want to wait for it.
That pretty much sums it up for me. I’d like everything right this minute, please. I can’t stand waiting. Whether I’m in traffic, on hold on the telephone, in line at the checkout counter at the grocery store, or waiting for my computer to boot up, I’m always in a hurry. Maybe it’s because I’m always late, always short on time, and thus am always trying to fit too many activities into a small amount of time. Or maybe it’s because I live in a society where multi-tasking has become the norm. Perhaps it is a combination of all of those things.
I’m very impatient. I’ve written a three-part song about my impatience, in fact. A selection from that song introduces this section. The song is called Waiting. Here are some more choruses from that piece of music:
Why must I keep waiting
For time that doesn’t exist
Am I missing something
Or trying to resist
Why must I keep waiting
Everything takes forever
Life is never simple
It’s always an endeavor
~ Waiting Part Two from Fearless Moral Inventory by Juliet A. Wright copyright 2010, all rights reserved
Why must I keep waiting
For hours without salvation
What is it that I’m gaining
But pain and frustration
Why must I keep waiting
What is it I’m to learn
If it’s peace I have none
More lessons will I earn
~ Waiting Part Three from Fearless Moral Inventory by Juliet A. Wright copyright 2010, all rights reserved
I am impatient for many different things. I’m impatient at the wheel of a car when I get behind a slow driver. I’m impatient when the phone rings, I answer it, and I don’t have time to talk and need to hang up. I’m impatient when I’m tired. I’m impatient with my art. I’m impatient when I’m in line at a Cumberland Farms convenience store, where some person is buying lotto tickets, cigarettes, sandwiches, and everything else behind the counter at a very slow pace.
I’m impatient when it comes to my weight loss too. God tells me to be patient and to persevere. I do my best. I am learning to endure the weight loss process by being happy with small amounts of weight loss at a time. This comes in opposition to my old self who expected to lose 10 pounds in one night by starving myself as I have in the past. It took me a while to gain the weight, it will take me a while to lose it. Good things come to those who wait. In this way, I am learning patience. One step forward, two steps back.
The bible addresses patience in the book of James:
Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.
~ James 5:7-8 (NIV)
When I’m struggling with patience, James reminds me to look for support in the prophets who were patient and persevered. I need to do this because:
As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered.
~ James 5:10-11 (NIV)
So the principle of perseverance is being addressed here. James wants us to keep going, keep trying, and not give up. In the book of James, Job — even though he was suffering from all kinds of illness and loss — persevered.
Patience and perseverance go hand in hand in my world too. I must learn to go by God’s timing, not my own. And I must remember that everything is happening as it is meant to happen.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake.[1]
The booklet Let Go and Let God by Steve Mays says that God made Joseph wait 13 years before he became head of Egypt as Prime Minister.[2]
So here I have the concept of patience coming at me from multiple sources. That is God talking to me. I must listen.
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you in due time. ~ 1 Peter 5:6 (NIV)
Steve Mays says we are impatient by nature. All humans are. He says sometimes God withholds things because he wants to do something even greater in the end. God is not in a hurry.[3] My therapist says that too. There is no urgency in Spirit.
[1] Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous: The Big Book, 4th ed. New York, NY: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. 2001, p. 417.
[2] Mays, Steve. Let Go and Let God: Casting Your Cares Upon the Lord. Gardena, CA: Light of the Word, 2009, p. 9.
[3] Ibid, pp. 6-7.
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