patience.

   Learning to be patient is a never ending cycle. Just when we think learning patience couldn't get more challenging, it does. Each lesson of patience leaves us stronger than we were before. But as soon as we take pride in that strength, there comes a new challenge which humbles us, because we see how much there is left to learn. 

Patience is that lesson we never stop learning. Just when we think we've got it figured out, a new lesson will sneak up on us in the most unexpected way. 

"Don't pray for patience!", they say, because God will trick us into a sticky situation and leave us waiting, struggling through the lesson on our own. True, it may feel that way in the moment, but that isn't the God I know. 

So why does God want us to learn patience? And why does it seem that, when we ask Him for patience, he gives it to us in the form of a challenge -- learning it the hard way?

   I think patience is set up this way to teach us about who He is. And He allows us to go through the times of hardship, testing, trying, exhaustion, waiting, wishing, hoping, disappointment, loneliness, and so on, so that we look to Him for help.

  We've all heard it before: God is love. Well, if He is love, then what does love look like?

"Love is patient." We all know love is a lot more than that, but this one word sums up my point. 

If Love is patient, that means God is Patient, which means He has an endless supply of it. 

So when we ask for patience, what we are really asking for is to be made like Him. 

That is no easy task, transforming from sinful, selfish, human - to selfless, blameless, righteous, holy.

No wonder it takes so long.

I know this: God wants us to be like Him, so we can be in constant communion with Him, like Jesus was/is. It's all about pursuing the relationship. 

So we must get rid of the sin that's blocking the path to that. We've flooded the road with our own self-seeking, lustful, ungodly ways. That's why it has to take time and is challenging. It's not because He tricks us into a lion's den the moment we ask for patience and says "I'll let you out when you've learned the lesson". No, that's what Satan tells us about God. 

God is all about giving. That's why, no matter how hard it might be, I'm going to keep asking Him for patience. Because I cannot make it through this life without. I cannot reach my goal of becoming like Him without His help, His strength, His guidance. I'm lost without the things which make up who He is. Patient. Kind. Not envious. Not boastful. Not proud. Not rude. Not self-seeking. Not easily angered. Keeping no record of wrongs. Not delighting in evil but rejoicing with truth. Always protecting. Always hoping. Always persevering. Never failing. 

 

   Life is a journey of learning this: It's not about me.

Why are those four words the hardest to grasp?

Life is about learning who God is, and who we are to Him--who were were made to be.

Life is about learning what love is. Who love is. That's all.

  I was going to end this by writing about the hard things I'm going through, how each day, each moment brings its own lesson of patience, how God feels distant but I'm choosing to believe He's close. But none of that seems to matter now that I look back at what I've written. It seems that He's always closer than we think, giving us the words where there are no words, leading us when we're not even looking. He is so caring and so gracious, and He always meets us where we are at.

I'm left with nothing but thankfulness.