A Practice in Patience

It became a joke of sorts in my church growing up, that we don’t pray for patience. Should it be one? Probably not. But, after a series of accidents within 24 hours of praying for patience among my small group, we ruled it out. We felt as though it was testing God: if you pray for patience, something horrible will happen and that’s how your patience will grow.

As if God could be constrained to only act upon our prayers. As though patience would be the only outcome of life altering accidents, injuries, and moments. As though we were more powerful than God if you really zero in on it and put it into perspective.

And yet: the topic remained taboo.

This all feels interesting and relevant somehow 20 odd years later as our family fights for answers to health situations we didn’t plan for, as our kids navigate their own paths through life and grow in their own faith, and as we face hurdles we never really thought we’d have to deal with. After all, we didn’t pray for patience, how could these situations come to exist (insert the face palm, or several of them, here).

But as we’ve walked… and sometimes fallen on our faces along the way… I’m sure patience has increased (maybe?), but, what has become more evident… is God’s patience with us. In his willingness to overlook our short-sighted, narrow views of his grand plan… washing over our inadequacies with overwhelming, not reliant on our actions at all, grace.

Gosh. The past few years have been a lesson in that… in grace… that I never could have imagined.

You see, I grew up doing fear really well… I believe a lot of us 90’s Christians did. We feared being “left behind,” we were sure we’d be squashed for our failures… many of us had recurring dreams of our houses catching fire as we slept. Hell was real, and it was close… it was our job to escape it.

The truth of God’s grace? That was a vision that – unfortunately – didn’t find it’s way to as many pulpits.

Thank God, literally, for his patience, as many of us have not deconstructed, but disentangled our warped view of who God is…in all of his unlimited, unfathomable qualities.

You see, walking the road walked has allowed me to learn more about his patience and his grace than I ever knew was possible… or even true. It’s allowed me to release fears that kept me in bondage (by accident? Likely not) by keeping me from God himself, simply by holding onto them and believing them in my heart. Better yet, the journey continues, one day at a time, one opportunity to learn at a time, and one opportunity to, not grow in my own patience, but learn the depth’s of God’s patience with me, at a time.

There’s goodness in the hard and there’s softness in the rocks. Thank God for patience.