Patience

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. I don’t know about you but I wish that I had no problem including all nine of these attributes in an example of how I live out my life. I could share a little about each of them but I’ll stick to the two I struggle with most.

Let’s talk about patience. I have none, end of story. Just kidding! I have a three year old and we all know that requires a good bit of patience. There is another type of patience…the one where we ask God who, what, when, where and why…and wait so impatiently to get the answers. When we get so mad because we just want what we want when we want it. You know, like the feeling of just wanting to lose that 20 lbs. and you want it to happen overnight. Talk about impatient! I can reflect back on so many times where I have felt so impatient waiting on God to make things happen or just give me answers. But one in particular is actually the current season I am walking in right now. Long story short, my husband and I have planned to do some renovation on our home, our dream home! We have set a date to get started and I can’t tell you how anxious I have been for that day to come. I have waited and waited. Well God has surely showed me and is definitely testing my patience! This past weekend on Sunday evening my husband wanted to “talk about our finances.” What this conversation turned into was us pushing out that renovation date even longer. You know, the date we were going to build our dream home. The set date I have been waiting so impatiently for. I could cry and smile all at the same time as we had our conversation because that’s not all our conversation was about! We aren’t just pushing out our renovation guys, God had called my husband to be more obedient with our tithing as a family! As we sat in Church that same Sunday morning and our preacher spoke on obedience, I prayed for this. No we can’t have our dream home, front porch swing, walk-in shower and barn door pantry. BUT, if waiting means our family is moving into obedience and putting God in control of our finances I will wait and wait some more. And if that didn’t stop me in my impatient tracks, I don’t know what would. There was God showing up and giving me answers. It may not be the answers to all my hopes and dreams but he knows best. Romans 8:27 – And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. Be patient, it is all in his plans! I wish this was the end of my blog but there is one more I want to share with you.

To be completely honest I was going to avoid this second one and talk on something else but the Lord is telling me otherwise. As believers, we practice self-control because we know, love and choose Jesus. Right? He gives us the power to overcome temptation. But in order to develop self-control, we must first be honest with ourselves about our weakness. We all have things that keep us connected to the person we were before being saved. 1 John 2:16 says – For everything in the world, the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does comes not from the Father but from the world. I would consider myself a good person before I got saved. I went to church occasionally, loved people, happy and kind hearted. But what I didn’t have or feel was conviction. There were things I did and said that were not pleasing to God. I didn’t realize that then but I do now. Which is one thing that makes being a Christian so hard. Going back to those things without guilt seems so easy with less feelings or worry attached. I have made decisions just in the past month that put me in a place of conviction. Things I am not very proud of. The word temptation means a desire to do something, especially something wrong or unwise. Let me repeat, wrong or unwise! How many of you can relate? I know I can on a few occasions. We have to resist our temptations… rather it be over-eating, gossiping, social media, things you say or do, drugs, alcohol whatever it may be…we have the power to say no because the same power that raised Jesus to life lives inside of us. We must do what is right and lead godly lives in today’s world. Our desires tempt us every day but we must control ourselves. I am not perfect and I don’t ever plan to be but we do have the ability to overcome the things that seem to overcome us!