Patience

"The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." 2 Peter 3:9

What a great God! Can you imagine having his patience? Yikes! As he watches from Heaven and sees us make mistake after mistake, error after error, yet He still loves us- and He still wants us to spend eternity with Him! When I think of how patient God is with us...well, it makes me determined to try a little harder to be more patient. Sometimes I really get filled with this sense of urgency- I'll be working on something or formulating an idea, and then I feel that the idea has to come to complete fruition right away. I get frustrated and annoyed that other people don't immediately jump on board and get as excited as I do. It's patience that I need to help me from becoming discouraged and disappointed.

What I am finding to be challenging when it comes to patience is the idea of waiting for an idea to be brought out. Recently while sitting in church during the sermon I had a really strong idea come to mind. It puzzled me at first...but then later on when I mentioned it to Andy, he had the same exact thought at the same time. So my first thought was, oh my gosh, we have to tell someone about this, we have to get this ball rolling. But we didn't tell anyone else about it, and the more we think on it, the more I feel that we need to have patience and preparation before revealing what God has shown us. It's timing and patience. And since God has an infinite amount of patience, we need to draw on His patience, and rely on His timing.

Patience is one of those things that people always say not to pray for- because then you get plenty of practice at it. I think I can be okay with that. Because as I practice more patience on the spiritual side of life, it seems to me that patience on the practical side of life will automatically fall into place. And I don't know anyone who couldn't use a little more patience. :-)