If you haven't heard the saying, "Patience is a virtue", please come out from under the rock you've been hiding under. If we replace "virtue" with synonyms, we might have phrases like: Patience is ethical. Patience is moral. Patience is righteous. Patience is worthy. Patience is respectable. Patience is honor. Patience is simply ... good. So why is it easy to have patience with certain things and harder with others? I had a friend recently say, "Why can't we be content where Jesus has us right now? I hate that we do that!", and how true are her words? (too true.) Our conversation led to talking about dreams and goals and wants and desires and she ended up saying something that really resonated with me: "There's a fine line between dreams He puts there and becoming unsatisfied with where we are." So I did what I should have been more consistent about doing and I picked up my Promise Book and the first page I turned to said: WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU NEED ... PATIENCE. And then I just knew God must've been with His palm on His forehead, because He has promised me the exact thing I am struggling with.
I need the most patience when I want something. Things I need, God never fails to deliver ... but things I want are a different story. Garth Brooks sings it best when he says "some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers" because more times than not, I am thanking God for knowing the difference between what I needed and what I wanted. And it always seems to me that the more I want something, the more patience I need, but I must be actively waiting. [insert some sort of transition here ... maybe a pick up line because they're my favorite? Okay, here goes ... You put the "stud" in Bible study. Yep, that just happened. On we go ......]
I love to write, thus I love taking notes. (mind you, most of my notes are pictures and bubble letters, but a visual learner has to do whatcha gotta do!) Anywho, the young adults group at church did a series this past summer where "actively waiting" was one of the biggest things that grasped a hold of me. Just a little background knowledge, I date all of my notes and I underline and date the scripture in the Bible that my notes refer to. So when I look at the notes from August 7th, 2014 and see we were talking about Psalm 37:4, and then I look in my Bible at Psalm 37, I see the 8/7/14 date along with a 2/9/14 date. So now I look in my notes at February 9th, 2014 and compare the August notes to the February notes and then the cycle just goes on and on and on. Well, that being said ... at the top of the page of my 8/7/14 notes, highlighted and in capital letters I wrote WAITING IS ESSENTIAL and bulleted 3 main points I would like to share with you because I feel like this is what I needed to re-read while facing my battle with patience.
(1)Waiting on God is an active thing! When we settle, we miss God's best for us.
(2)Waiting on God is a sign that He loves us very much! This is the time we should be asking ourselves, "What does God want to grow in me while I am waiting?"
(3)We are not waiting alone! Waiting builds our faith.
When I look at Psalm 37 and see the date 2/9/14, the notes for February 9th say: "God created you needy on purpose." As humans, we automatically want to be defensive and say that we are not needy, but in all reality our heart is the biggest need of our life (also in my notes!). We want unconditional love, to be valued, happiness, freedom, purpose, and hope. God created us with all of these needs so that they could be met. Now I didn't say God created us with all of these needs so that they could be met on our time... I said that He created us with wants and needs and desires and goals and dreams so that when His timing is right and when our desires line up with His plan for our lives, our needs will be met. I struggle with patience not because I want something, but because I want something instantly. Patience takes time, and with time all things are better. I can cook instant mashed potatoes in a solid 90 seconds flat, and they are alright, but if I take my time and mash real potatoes and go through all 50 million steps, my potatoes won't be just alright, they will be FREAKING AWESOME! Why should we want an "alright" life when we have been promised a FREAKING AWESOME life? God will give us what we want and what we need when our wants/needs fall into His grandeur plan for our FREAKING AWESOME lives. (apparently He's not a huge fan on instant potatoes when He knows the real deal is so much better)
I am praying for patience. I am praying for guidance. I am praying for God's will to be done in my life. I have been challenged to do this, and I'm passing the challenge onto you. I challenge us to look in Bible when we want something and find where God promised it to us. If it's not in His word, then maybe that's not part of His plan, but if it is, then He's already promised it to us and we can speak it into being in His perfect timing through prayer. I challenge you to pray, to be patient, and to listen. I challenge you to take a deep breath, pick the potatoes, and hand them over to the man upstairs to clean them, boil them, mash them, season them, and serve them ... because I promise you as hard as it may be to wait, He's the best chef in town.
If we change the "patience is a virtue" saying around to use synonyms for the word patience, we get: Self-restraint is a virtue. Understanding is a virtue. Calmness is a virtue. You didn't know that when you said that common four word phrase that you were really saying a lot more than four little words, did you? I'll leave you with my absolute favorite pick-up line (because if someone actually used it on me my response would be "Yes, I will marry you") ... I was looking through the book of numbers, and I realized I didn't have yours!
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