Patience
My father loved the word patience. He was always trying to get me to slow down and enjoy life. Being patient seemed like molasses dripping to me. It was an excuse to be slow an excuse to not committ whole hearted and just wait.
I didn’t connect his wisdom with patience to scripture until after he had passed away. There is a scripture in Psalms 46:10 that says “Be still and wait on God.” The funny thing is that the first few verses of that scripture that spoke to me are not readily available in some bible translations. When I learned this, it floored me. The words before that are “ Cease Striving or quit striving.
There it was in all of its strength, the thing my father had tried to teach me all my life. He passed when I was 44. It was too soon. Like many men, I did not fully appreciate him until he was gone. Then I realized the things he tried to teach me that I refused to learn were things God would impress on my heart as He is our Heavenly Father. That is the nice thing about the Lord, He gives us earthly fathers that do the best they can under the pressure they deal with. Sometimes you get a father that hits a homerun on most things and then sometimes you honestly get less than you hoped for. With God;however, you get the Father of Fathers who never misses or never makes a mistake.
That is why His word is so important in our lives and in business. There is so much wisdom in Psalms and Proverbs alone that you could spend years studying and barely scratch the surface of that wisdom.
Patience is one of those things that takes time to understand. I think age gives us time to understand it better. Unless you grow up an old soul, you are likley where I was. I wanted to get things done quickly on my timetable at my speed and it didn’t matter. I think I am learning how selfish I was. Patience requires you to wait and to wait well. You can either wait on situations or wait in the Lord.
At work when I am struggling with a co-worker or collegue, I can get caught in the moment and forget to pray and give those moments to the Lord and patiently wait for direction. Psalm 40:1 says “I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry.” When we wait on God in prayer we get results. You may be thinking, how can I do that when I have all of these decisions? I have to act. I can tell you with certainty that when you practice waiting prayer with the Lord, you will get a peace about the general direction to go. I have had scripture give me confidence to make hard decisions. I have also waited a long time through prayer and study and still need to practice patience before making a final decision. In those instances, I have found that the prayer and study changes me therefore the situation is not in the end what needed an answer but it was me that needed more refining so God could use me in that difficult situation.
Patience is difficult and I get that. I bet many of you struggle with it as I have over the years. As we close out this topic, I invite you to learn, as I am, that going to the Lord with everything is much easier than trying to tackle it in my strength. There is truth in the fact that God does hear us in the waiting and he does give us exactly what we need even if it looks differently than what we initially ask for.
