Thoughts on Patience

Tonight, I was halfheartedly poking around looking at quotes and short pieces on patience – because I’m not feeling very patient right now.  Not with anything.  Not with the pizza guy or the Rotten Cats or the weather.  Not with myself or the people around me, not with the circumstances in life that we’ve been dealt to handle right now.

So impatient.

And so I thought it might be wise to turn to words for solace or inspiration.  I love words.  I think in words.  Words always work for me.

In my travels this evening, I came across the video for the song “Blessings” by Laura Story quite by accident.  I have never heard of Laura Story before, and I have never heard any of her songs.  I cannot even begin to guess how I landed on the page that contained the video and I was about to click away from the page.

But something made me decide to listen to it.  Because it was there.

I listened twice.  And then again.  Predictably, the words struck me.  It was probably the line about a thousand sleepless nights that did it first – I’m a terrible insomniac and the last few weeks have been particularly sleepless for me.  But really, there were many lines and words in there that drew my attention.

Give it a listen if you’re game…

Nothing in it came as unfamiliar to my ears.  There is nothing untrue about the message.  Of course not.  I could list three or four variations of the message right off the top of my head.  But I won’t.  I’ve recited them all to death in the last few weeks and thought about them repeatedly.  But they weren’t making me feel any more patient.  So maybe I just needed a reminder to stop being a brat today.  Because I’m a pretty big impatient brat today.

A few Bible verses are peppered lightly throughout the video – words among the images.  Very appropriate, very expected.  One made me stop, though.  It flashed by on the first pass.  It registered on the second pass.  I went looking for it the third time.  There it was – the thing that I had forgotten.  Included near the end was Psalm 25, verse 2: “In you, I trust, O my God.”

I have been trying too hard lately to put my trust in the world around me – in people, in actions, in events.  I have been blaming those people, actions, and events for the end results that I do not like.  But every so often in the last few weeks, I have been sent a reminder that my trust is misplaced if it is not placed wholly with God.  This was just the latest version.

I do not believe in coincidence.  As far as I am concerned, there is no such thing.  I believe that the so-called coincidences in life are really the power of the Spirit at work in our lives.  I believe that very truly.  And so for whatever reason, I found and then heard that song.  It is probably the fourth or fifth such reminder of how I should be facing this period.  I am just stubborn; sometimes it takes me a while to accept a good idea.

So back to patience…I have been demanding answers, solutions, progress from God.  And I have demanded them immediately.  When I want something done, I want it done yesterday.  That approach never works.  I know that I have to be more patient…the answers will come.  This will not likely kill us and it probably will make us stronger…a door may have closed, but a window will be opened…and the good things will come to those of us who wait.  The hard part is not remembering the quotes, it is remembering – and trusting – that it is God’s Will that has to be carried out here, not my own.