Patience

This post will definitely be incomplete on the subject of patience, but I felt inspired to share a few thoughts I got a few days ago.

Patience is something that doesn't come to me. I normally like things to move consistently and quickly. I don't like to wait for things I think should happen immediately. Our world is inundated with instant gratification. It's fast-paced, and most things we do don't take us much time. We get frustrated if a website takes too long to load, if a video buffers, or if the drive-thru at McDonald's takes too long (side note: that's why you go to Chick-Fil-a, btw). I also don't like to wait for an answer... I want a yes or a no, and then like to move along. However, that's not always the way things work. The world doesn't spin to the whim of my desires. All that said, this is an area God has used to work on me.

Romans 8:25
"But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it."

Hoping in Christ is equivalent to having the patience to wait for it. We don't have a real hope if we aren't willing to wait and aren't patient about it. This spoke to me because I am often an impatient person. I expect things from people to be done quickly -- with my family, friends, peers, even people I don't really know. I expect them to operate based on the timetable I deem acceptable for myself... or perhaps even faster sometimes. But the act of impatience bears unpleasant fruits, and reveals some ugly traits as well. It can spur anger, discontentment, grumblings, murmurings, and so on. There are plenty of different things that can rise up from an instance of impatience with other people.

However, this isn't even the most important point. It made me think: If I'm impatient with other people, am I impatient with God?

We ask things of God all the time, but are we hoping for them and having the patience to WAIT for them, regardless of how long it takes, in God's perfect timing? That's a challenge. Being patient with God is absolutely essential to getting the right thing he has for us at the right time. This can be the case with anything. With education, job situations, relationships -- any of those things are things that require patience and a HOPE in God, regardless of what we see and don't see. Our vision of the future is not perfected like God's is. We have to be patient while we have HOPE in Christ that the right thing will work out for us in any circumstance, instead of getting upset that the answer doesn't come immediately. As I mentioned earlier, we are conditioned in our world today to expect instant gratification. Yet, God still requires the same thing he always has -- to wait on Him.

Psalm 27:14
"Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord."

I was reading in Streams in the Desert a few days ago, and one phrase particularly caught my attention.

"God's promise is equal to his presence."

What does that mean? In my interpretation, it means, independent of time, God's promise is just as good as his immediate, "now" presence or answer. If we don't feel like God has spoken or given us an answer right now, his promise remains unchanged. We shouldn't lose hope, it doesn't mean he has forsaken us. Just because we don't see him actively working or changing something in our favor doesn't mean he's not. He's promised to never leave us or forsake us. That doesn't change based on our human expectations or timeline of things. We just have to have the patience to wait, while hoping in Christ for the best outcome of whatever situation it is facing us. This thought was a real encouragement to me to know that our hope in Christ should not be dependent upon time or what we see. God's promise is sure. Living up to the first verse is a big challenge to hope in Christ while having the patience to wait.

Keep encouraged!