I DON'T MIND WAITING

I DON’T MIND WAITING

Really and truly have you ever seriously considered what it means to be patient. I write about patience frequently because our culture suffers from a shortage of it.

Patience is a gift. Patience can be a learned skill and some work diligently to achieve a degree of success.

Let me describe what I think patience looks like and then I will describe how much patience I don’t have as I am guilty of contributing to its shortage.

Patient people can live with ambiguity. They sit and watch situations evolve and alter at an unknown pace. They stay in the game and wait for the outcome. Not knowing or understanding fully is not only tolerated, but they also seem to flourish during the quiet periods while waiting for the solution. It is enough to drive some of us a bit crazy watching them wait. One might look and think that nothing is being done to solve the problem. Patient people don’t force the solution, they wait for the solution. They do, however, expect a successful solution to difficulties and differences to surface. They wait expectantly. Patient people are wise, knowing when action is required and are well-versed in knowing when to be still. That is what I think patience is.

I don’t like ambiguity. I don’t wait particularly well, and I like to make things happen. I was not born with the gift of patience. Experience has been a great teacher and I have had many refresher courses in trying to acquire the skill of patience. Observing others with the gift has been extremely helpful.

My brother married his college sweetheart, raised two fantastic daughters and is an awesome “Papaw” to four terrific grandchildren. His middle name should be patient. He has shown me how to deal with ambiguity (wife and teenage to adult daughters) and has mastered the art of knowing when to act and when to be still. He never seems to force a solution but expects one to rise to the top. I could go on, but I will stop. He is a man with the gift of patience.

I am a fretter…not verbally but my head is often buzzing. Fretting is an energy zapper. History has shown me that the outcome is never as bad as I thought, or was exactly as I thought or somewhere in the middle. My impatient pushing to make this or that happen didn’t seem to matter, so why do it? I stopped- ALMOST. The desire to do so is my default. When I sit back and breathe, I am reminded - there is a better way – it is called patience.

Proverbs 14:29

PONDER THIS THOUGHT---To wait patiently is a goal worth pursuing.