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The Real Question

            Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. (Psalm 37:7)

Better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city. (Proverbs 16:32)

Love is patient… (I Corinthians 13:4)

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience… (Galatian 5:22)

Yes, the subject is patience again, and I don’t know that I have the patience to face it. I started out this morning with the idea of fasting for the day. I did this one day last week and was pleasantly surprised at its comparative ease. At least, as I remember it, it was comparatively easy. This morning hasn’t been as easy. But as I walked the dog, one of the ideas that came to mind was delayed gratification. That’s not what I called it, but it’s the technical term. What I called it was that the answer to “I want to eat” is “You’re allowed to want to eat. That doesn’t mean you must eat.” Or, to return to an idea I wrote about several days ago, “I wanna… but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna.”

This is a key to patience. Patience requires desire or need. When we are being patient, desire or need may wax, or wane, or wax and wane. This is where we tend to focus. “But we wants it, my precious.” I want to eat. I want to redesign my vegetable garden for next year. I want my garden to produce so much food that I can feed myself, preserve some for future use, and give some to others. I want to have plants that feed and host butterflies, and enough butterflies to make the number of plants necessary. I want to know how to do things so that if I need to do them, I can. I want to try a bunch of different muffin and bread recipes, but don’t have the room to store 500 muffins or the time to eat them. I want my books to be written and to sell. I want it to be the 16th of July (or thereabouts) so I can release the Monarch that is pupating on my kitchen table. I want to be done reading Moby Dick and Bleak House but I don’t want to give up and walk away. I want to have read them. Similarly, I want to have lost about 90 lbs. I want God to miraculously answer every prayer request I give Him, and – if I have to learn to have patience, I want that to happen miraculously, too. None of this learning and building nonsense.

This is where we must return to the idea that spurred these thoughts about patience: God’s view of time and how it differs from ours. He has eternity. I have forty years (maybe.) In my mind, I have this summer…this month…this week…today… now!  So who is the one with the problem here? I am. And the solution, quite probably, is not to learn to tough it out longer, to live with the wanting and get stronger. The solution, quite probably, is to change my perspective – to live longer-term. I’m not saying that I should ask myself “Will it matter in eternity?” or “Will it matter in ten years?” I’m thinking more in terms of actually believing that what is an issue right now may resolve in 6 months, but if it’s not resolved until ten years into eternity, that’s OK, too. The question is – no matter how long it takes, am I going to trust God?

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