It's How You Wait

By no choice of my own, I was up at 5am this morning. Matt's alarm went off, I heard it, and that was it. I was up. And I was thinking, Really? There's no school today, I have absolutely nothing I have to do, and I'm up over an hour before I usually get up? I guess you could say I was NOT happy!

But, I started flipping channels, and Joyce Meyer was on. I really enjoy watching her, so that's what I turned it to. She was telling this story about a muscle car her husband bought and her attempts to get him to sell it. The whole gist of what she was saying was that patience is a fruit of the Spirit and patience is not just being able to wait on something. It's how you wait.

This really spoke to me and got me thinking. I'll be the first to admit...patience has never been one of my strongest characteristics! I'm the kind of person who will take forever to figure out what I want, what I'm doing, where I'm going, etc. But, once I do finally figure it out, I want it NOW! I've really had to make a big time effort to work on that, and I have been for years now. I do think I have become more patient, but I still have a long way to go!

But...hearing Joyce talk about patience made me wonder if I really have become more patient. I've gotten better at waiting for things. But that whole, "It's how you wait" part...that's the part that gets me. The more I think about it...I really pester God...A LOT! When I've decided I want something, or I feel like He's shown me something He wants me to do or a path He's going to send me on, I just hound Him about it until it happens. Everyday I will say something about it while I'm praying. And, at times, I'm not too nice about it. I know what I say to my own kids when they ask me the same thing over and over and over again! It makes me crazy! But, that's what I've been doing myself when I constantly bug God about doing something, showing me something, or giving me something.

I dug into my Bible and found this verse: ...hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not have, we wait for it patiently. ~Romans 8:24-25. And then I found this one: I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in His word I put my hope. ~Psalm 130:5. I've read these two verses probably fifty times in the last hour. I've read the verses that come before them and after them to get the whole context within which they were written. What I've come to is that once I've asked God for something, I have to really, truly trust Him to decide what He's going to do. I have to be thankful for the things He has already done in my life while I am waiting on Him. I have to put my hope in His word while I am waiting on Him. I have to use the gifts He has already given me to help people, bless people, and bring Him to people while I am waiting on Him. But, I definitely do not need to nag Him!

See, here's what I know. God's timing is always perfect. If I try to change His timing, that takes the perfection out of the action. I may get what I'm asking for, but it won't work the way He wants it to unless I wait on Him to give it to me. And, if I truly trust Him, His plan, and His timing, then I won't ask for or expect anything other than that. And when I do, I am only showing Him that I do not fully trust Him.

I've never really looked at patience this way before, but I'm glad I have a new perspective on it. I guess in hindsight, that 5am alarm wasn't so bad!