Reflections: Trying God's Patience

Nothing compels me more than reflecting on past experiences, hence unearthing life's lessons as the thought of getting older.  I have never looked at life in the same way after experiencing the short, emotional, and exhausting campaigns the Lord has sought to bring me through.

Perhaps the most challenging of life's lessons is that of cultivating PATIENCE.  I have been trying God's PATIENCE for some years now.  Why is PATIENCE so difficult at times?  Why is PATIENCE such a struggle?  Perhaps,it is, because, "All human beings are sinners and therefore selfish and annoying."  It remains so challenging because we have the tendency to see things from our point of view.  We each struggle with various levels of strengths and weaknesses.  Little do others know how hard we work at being PATIENT or do we?

Many of my adventures in life have involved opportunities to grow in PATIENCE, cultivating submissive attitudes to God's will, often to minister in unique ways.  Not that I have arrived because I have not.  God is still working on me and perhaps getting older is meant to be some of our last efforts at demonstrating PATIENCE as we go through the process of decline of age, creating opportunities for exercising the PATIENCE of all.

Nothing exercises PATIENCE more than entering Dementia and Alzheimer's World,both for the afflicted and those who care for them.

PATIENCE is a willingness to watch God's purposes unfolding with a sense of wonder and awe rather than foreboding dread.  The Scriptures allow us to marvel at the patience of God.  "The PATIENCE of God waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark."    120 years!

"Relevance of PATIENCE permits us to deal more effectually with the unevenness of life's experiences...clearly, without PATIENCE we learn less in life."

There are poignant and frequent reminders to exercise PATIENCE through out life.  I find myself having PATIENCE with some people and some situations, but not all.  Many times, I have been placed in difficult predicaments or forced to deal with what seems like "impossible" situations.  Each nuisance-long wait-trials-every mosquito bite-sitting in traffic-body aches, in life are exercises in PATIENCE.

Concerted efforts at exercising PATIENCE is relatively inconsequential, short-term situations gradually develop the strength to remain PATIENT in the most stressful and enduring environments.

So CHERISH PATIENCE as a major step in understanding and appreciating the process of cultivating it.   Scriptures reveal to us that when we display PATIENCE in our lives, we are really a reflection of Christ.  

PATIENCE is evidence of God's presence in us.  My greatest lessons in PATIENCE come from three major sources, my involvement in care giving, daily nuisances, and discomforts of home life.    RjS

Mirror Pond,  "Rome was not built in a day."