If I could order “patience” from Amazon I’d order a double dose expecting to receive it ASAP. I need this virtue more than ever since immediacy is so much a part of our lives.
Our lives are propelled with insta-everything: on-the-spot photos, quick microwave meals, instant messaging, immediate email notifications, urgent replies, and critical responses.
We want and need everything NOW.
As our impatience mounts, we whirl out of control. Impatience breeds more impatience with ourselves, and it spills onto others, and then God.
We get impatient with ourselves when:
- We fail to meet standards.
- We exaggerate the urgency of immediate success.
- We fail to acquire what we deem we need.
- We emphasize what we lack rather than what we have.
We get impatient with others when:
- People fail to meet our time expectations. (Grocery lines and fellow drivers come to mind).
- People fail to see things the way we do.
- People fail to convert from their old ways of doing things into ways we think are better.
- People fail to keep up with us physically.
We get impatient with God:
- When we feel the crunch of time. God works on DST – Divine Standard Time, not ours.
- We think we know what is best for us.
We can see how our impatience mounts until it consumes us. Instead of letting it run our lives, destroy our relationships with others and keep us from bonding with God. We need to turn our impatience into patience.
Since we are all on the fast-forward pace let’s remember this advice from Joyce Meyer:
“Patience is not simply the ability to wait; it’s how we behave while we are waiting.”
Take a deep breath and realize that good things come to those who wait…patiently!
