Our whole world revolves around the idea of instant gratification, now more than ever before. With the technology we have at our disposal and the resources we have access to, humans have been conditioned to depend on fast-paced success or failure. We see this impatience take place all around us.
We take a test in the morning, then we complain when the scantrons haven’t been scanned by the end of the day.
We go to Whataburger and our order hasn’t come out in over 10 minutes, so we request to speak to a manager about why his restaurant is so inefficient.
We are watching YouTube videos and an advertisement comes on, but, to our terror, we can’t skip past it! That is something that could come straight out of a horror movie created by millennials.
These are just a few goofy examples, and maybe you aren’t someone who would freak out in any of these situations, but that is not the point. The fact of the matter is that patience is not the strong suit of this generation, yet the Bible tells us it is a fruit of the spirit. The King James Version (I am a NIV man myself) mentions the word ‘patience’ 34 times. If it is in the Bible once it shouldn’t be ignored, much less 34 times. So, we have to ask our ourselves: Are we practicing patience like obedient Christians should?
For sure, my answer is a no and I am not going to sit here and pretend like I don’t struggle with patience. I have this perceived notion of what life is supposed to be like for me, and anytime it doesn’t follow this idea in my head, I get frustrated and start having this negative outlook on the situation.
I don’t understand why I react in this way because we are told in Jeremiah 19:21 (ESV) that “many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand”. We must take a step back from our idea of what life is supposed to hold for us and look to the Lord for what he has in store for us.
This doesn’t mean God’s will for your life will be evident immediately. Far from it, in fact. Most of the time we will not see the purpose of the way our lives are panning out until much later in the future.
We have to continually seek Him and His purpose will be revealed to us. You can safely bet that your purpose will come to fruition because “the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments” (Deuteronomy 7:9).
What we can take away from this is that if the God of the universe has a patient, steadfast love for us, who are broken and sinful people, we should do whatever we can to replicate that kind of patience. Resting in the fact that He keeps his covenant because He loves us should be great enough motivation to take a chill pill every once in a while, especially when life is getting the best of us.
I make it sound easy, (and it most certainly is not), but rediscovering just how much our God loves us is enough to refocus our energies on pursuing Him, instead of stressing about the life you have neatly planned out for yourself. If we continue to pray, read His Word, and trust that God’s timing is going to benefit us more than our own, we can achieve one of the toughest things our generation struggles with. Patience is a virtue they say, but it is also a mindset that you have to consistently work on.
