Patience Young Grasshopper

Patience: an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay. 

Everyone knows the saying “patience is a virtue” well I definitely do not have that virtue. Being patient is probably one of the toughest things for me to do. Maybe you are better at it and if you are high five to you and please tell me how you do it! Ask my family or any of my closest friends they will testify for me. The smallest things just trigger my "impatient button". For example sitting at a busy intersection staring at a red light as it changes from red to green, if the car in front of me takes longer than .003 seconds to go I most likely will begin to yell at them, like they can hear me of course, and then I have to refrain from slamming my nub on the center of my steering wheel to blast the horn. You are probably thinking seriously Carley, that's dumb you get impatient over that? Yep, I know. Or lines, oh man I cannot do long lines. Waiting in lines is the worst if you are an impatient person. Well actually I do not think I have ever encountered someone who likes to wait in lines. Whew I’m not alone in this category. To me waiting in line is so boring and a waste of time.

Every time I go an amusement park to ride roller coasters I always say as we are entering the gate "I want front car!" Everyone knows that the best seat on a roller coaster is the front! There is nobody in the way you aren’t staring at the back of the car in front of you and you can see everything! Sitting in the front car as you climb to the top of the largest hill and you are looking straight up at the sky it is such a cool feeling! Once reaching the top you feel as if you are dangling there waiting for the rest of the coaster to make it to the top and as you dangle you are staring right at the big drop ahead of you. That gets my blood pumping and my adrenaline flowing! I love the front! But there is always a problem…

Once I get to the front of the line it is time to decide which car to sit in. The front car always has another long line to wait in and of course after an hour or two of already waiting in line I am worn out and do not even care to sit in the best seat. Even though I know that if I waited just a little bit longer I would love the rollercoaster that much more. But I have already been waiting for so long I just want to ride the ride. I always end up just slipping into an average middle seat and enjoy the thrill of the hills, twists and turns from the middle of the roller coaster. Throwing my desire to wait for the front car out the window because I am too impatient wait just a little longer. 

We can be a lot like waiting for roller coasters in many areas of our lives. We are working so hard to reach that goal, to buy that perfect house, to have that remarkable opportunity but instead of waiting for that we will give in to something that is easier because we can have it right now. The world today is so fast and so right now that if you do not get something right now it is the end of the world and your life is over. Obviously that is not true but that’s the way the world makes you to think.

Just like on a roller coaster you can wait and have the best experience in the front car or you can still have an enjoyable ride it is just not as awesome as it would have been had you waited a few more minutes for the front car. We settle for average because it is right here right now. Even though we know that if we would just be patient in knowing that God has something even better in mind for our lives.

Something that can be harder than that is trusting God. Trusting Him enough to give Him control over every area of your life. Knowing that He has your best interest. He is a God with a funny sense of humor too. He may make you wait, He may give you an answer right away. He may say that what you are sitting around waiting for may not be for you and as He closes one door He will open another one, an even better door for you to walk through. I pray that you will trust God with all the areas of your life because He knows everything that you will ever think, say or do, so why not trust Him and allow Him to give you the patience you may need in a specific area of your life. As Carrie Underwood would say let “Jesus take the wheel”. Let him be the driver of your life.

God makes all things work together for your good. If He is giving you a “wait and trust me” like He is in my life, it is because He has something even better in store for you and His timing is perfect, it is never early and never late.

So as you are being patient and waiting for God to give you an answer remember to never stop praising Him. He is an incredible God and as we were reminded this past Easter weekend that God loves you so much that He died for YOU! What a God we serve! His plans are far greater than ours could ever be. So pray that God gives you patience to trust Him even in difficult times of waiting because in the end it will be worth the wait! 

"Patient endurance is what you need now, so you will continue to do God's will. Then you will receive all that He has promised" Hebrews 10:36