Patience

My times are in your hands. Psalm 31:15a NIV

We’re not good at patience, are we? I know I’m not, and every time I think I am getting better, something else, something bigger, hits me and I get…. Well you know, impatient! If we believe that God is supreme, and everything including our future are in His hands, and nothing is left to chance, and we do, then why do we have to keep on learning the same lesson? I wonder if God gets impatient with our impatience? There must be times when He wonders if we will ever get past the infant stage and grow into adulthood as far as our faith is concerned.

Patience is a strange thing. You can see the lack of it in others so very easily, but we think we have it all together until the rubber hits the road, and we are tested. Let’s face it, we are tested often and that must be because we need it. How else will we ever learn to trust Him fully, and with everything? If it was all up to chance or luck, we could brush our impatience off with the feelings that we will never have to grow in patience. But God, who knows all, is supremely patient with His children.

It occurred to me again recently, just how much I like to be in control. In a personal matter I had it all figured out as if I didn’t need to have God in the picture anyway. Truth is, I didn’t think I needed Him. After all, this was one of those easy things I could figure out and do for myself. So why include, or even bother God? Doesn’t He have enough to be doing with more important people and bigger problems? Aren’t you glad that God thinks we are important enough for Him to care about those irritations which make us impatient? Deep down I am. What a great God we serve who leaves nothing to chance, and whose timing is always right.