"Since God is a patient God, when we abandon patience we miss the opportunity to show our world the glory of God through our lives. Bursts of impatience only demonstrate that we are more concerned with our own agendas than the needs and struggles of others. So let’s take a deep breath and turn our focus away from ourselves by patiently loving others in the midst of stress. Be patient. Show your world what God is really like.” (Our Daily Bread, 9-25-08)

Waiting. On first thought, I considered myself a pretty patient person. I seldom become exasperated waiting in the Walmart line…I always pick the wrong one anyway; I seldom fall victim to road rage…I know there are very few perfect drivers like myself; long waits in lobbies for a doctor’s appointment…no problem, I usually get engrossed in a magazine article I rarely get to finish as it is.

But as I contemplated further, I realized that most of my waiting had been done in seasons, some of them quite long. And patience did not always have its perfect work while trusting God to work.

I prayed, and fretted, and saw God do a lot of changing in my own heart and life while waiting for nearly ten years to seemy parents turn fully to God. By the time my own children were old enough to really get to know and love their grandparents, they were different people than they had been as my parents. But that took time, and God’s great grace.

I prayed, and fretted, and saw God do a lot of changing in my own heart while waiting for years to see God heal a bitter relationship between my mother and my grandmother. They were both finally able to see the Lord help them set aside a lifetime of pain and hurt, and experience love and acceptance and forgiveness before the Lord took my grandmother home. But that took time, and God’s great grace.

I prayed, and fretted, and saw God do a lot of changing in my own heart while waiting several years to see change and healing come to a church, and us ultimately directed to another ministry in another part of the country. I could not see it at the time, but would we have been open to relocating under other circumstances? That took time, and God’s great grace.

Once again, I prayed, I fretted, I pleaded with God for nearly three years to open a door of escape when I was in a situation I thought I could not endure much longer. The hurt, the disappointment, the spiritual abuse that I saw taking place, the oppression, the anger, all the self-examination and near despondency when God was silent. All that, to see God in one swift move, take me higher and give me what I did not think possible. All the tears, all the grieving, then joy and contentment. But that took time, and God’s great grace.

My son Aaron recently called and left a quote on my voicemail: “God is most glorified in me when I am most satisfied in Him, even in suffering.” Isn’t that the very core of patience, being satisfied in Him?

“Knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patience, but let patience have her perfect work that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting [lacking] nothing”, James 1: 3-4.