The world’s best athletes always say they play their best when they “let the game come to them”. Treat life like a game.
Proverbs 25:15
Waiting at a traffic light drives me crazy.
Why?
I’m not sure.
Is it really that important that I get to my destination 60 seconds earlier?
In most every case, the answer is “No”.
Then why do we get so anxious?
Good question… I wish I knew the reason but I do know the answer.
Here’s another angle on patience…
One of my old friend’s high school yearbook quote was this: “I want what I want when I want it.”
In his case, that fit him to a “T” but is that a good thing or a bad thing?
The answer is… it depends.
It’s good if you’re striving for something worthwhile and you need to be motivated to get it done. But it’s bad if you take shortcuts and leave other people’s needs on the side of the road in a ditch.
Today’s Tiny Words. Big Life. Bible verse tells us that patience can bring great rewards.
And it’s not always easy. Oftentimes, if we’re anxious about things and want them to happen in a time frame that suits us, we’ve failed to remember that God’s will and timeline can be different. In those cases, we have to be sure that impatience doesn’t rear its ugly head due to a lack of faith.
On that subject, I’m reminded of the biblical account of Israel overcoming the walls at Jericho. In Joshua 6:2-5, 2 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. 3 March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. 4 Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. 5 When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in.”
As it turned out, Israel won a great battle on that day. But, if they had not shown patience and waited for what the Lord had in store for them, things would have surely turned out different.
The Tiny Words. Big Life. Takeaway is this: Pray for patience to wait for God’s hand on your outcomes. Pray for prudence and compassion to make decisions based on consideration for all parties. Pray that God will bless the decisions you make and use them to His glory.
And the next time you’re feeling antsy at a traffic light, take a chill pill and drive back home. When you get there, open up your high school yearbook. In addition to laughing at every page, you’ll also realize that you should’ve been a little more patient with your Mom when she was trying to fix your hair for the high school prom!
Proverbs 25:15
15 Through patience a ruler can be persuaded, and a gentle tongue can break a bone.