Patience... Patience... Patience.... Be Patient, I'll Get to the Next Part

I shared with you earlier last week the struggles that I have with patience. I tend to be a very independent person, a do it yourselfer, a planner, always on the go as far as where I want to be and where I think I can be. Now the Lord is telling me no more! This time your soul is going to side with your spirit and not your body.

I've got to tell you that the progress that I have made with my battle of patience has been extraordinary! God is teaching me things every day and these teachings are really taking roots deep down in my soul. I'm nearing the end of Joyce Meyer's Battlefield of the Mind, and let me tell you she really seems to know what I struggle with.

God teaches us patience through struggles and trials, and He really delights in this. No, its not the suffering He delights in but when we actually "take the hint" and begin to realize how releasing patience can be and how we can begin to have a patient attitude. That patient attitude is what He delights in and it is what He wants for both you and I. Let me tell you, a patient attitude is very stress relieving! I want to rephrase the above statement just so you understand what I now get... "patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting." So if I am upset and stressed out and loosing sleep even though I have said I'm going to wait, I'm not being patient. If I make alternate plans and think about other options that I have to maybe nudge things along even though I've said I was going to wait, I'm not being patient. I have to have a good attitude about it, not doubt, not anger, not worry and anxiety.

I am very much a goal-oriented person. If you have known me for a while, you know that I started college 2 weeks after I graduated HS and have been going ever since, I am now a year and a half into my masters program and I graduated HS in 2005. This is very good in terms of my drive to succeed in life, however I realize that I have to be very cautious of this personality trait. I realize now that I am so driven, that I have been waiting most of my life. I couldn't wait to get into college, I couldn't wait to transfer into a university to work on my major courses, I couldn't wait to finish and graduate to find a career, an opportunity came along for grad school and now I can't wait for that to be over so I can find a career, settle down and not move everywhere, start a home out in the country and start raising a family. WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH ME! I just realized that I have never STOPED waiting because I have never learned to be patient! Instead of being anxious to "move on" to the next part of life, I should be learning to enjoy where I am while I'm on my way to where I am going. I've learned this trick with hiking... I just need to apply it to the rest of you life. Think about it. If you go to this great conservation area, or state park, or national park and you head out on a trail how do you hike. Do you run it as fast as you can and not pay any attention to what is around you, or do you stroll down the trail observing the beauty in nature that God has created for His pleasure. If He created all of these things (like 3000 walking stick species) for His pleasure, than wouldn't it make since for us to enjoy them when we have the opportunity? If you're just running down the trail as fast as you can all the time, you should have just gone to the gym that was only a block from your house. Sometimes running down the trail can be very exhilarating and challenging, but you don't want to spend you're entire time in the woods running past it's beauty.

Joyce also makes a statement that "the devil cannot control a patient man." I had to honestly think about this statement for a while. I mean even if I'm patient to no fault, couldn't the devil still get into my head? NO! Lets think about the things that satan uses to get in our heads. Wondering (to much noise in the "head" phones). Confusion (due to overthinking). Doubt. Unbelief. Anxiousness. Worry. Criticism. Judgment. Suspicious. All  of these things can be controlled if you are truly patient to no fault and believe that God will provide all of your needs and wants!

So what are things that represent not having patience? Well, all of these things along with pride, anger, rebellion, self-pity, complaining and I'm sure there are many more. I have had a lot of pride in my life, and I never realized what it was until I read Joyce's description of a proud "man" (I'm replacing this with woman now on, just so you know) ;). "The proud [woman] runs in the strength of [her] own flesh and tries to make things happen in [her] own timing... The humble [woman] waits patiently (with a good attitude); [she] actually has a "reverential fear" of moving in the strength of [her] own flesh. But a proud [woman] tries one thing after another, all to no avail. WOW! I hope you caught that... I should FEAR moving my life in my own direction and according to my own strength! Dang! It's a good thing He's been looking out for me even though I've been pushing my own cart! I could be in a huge  mess if He had not.

1 Peter 5:6 says, "Therefore humble yourselves [demote, lower yourselves in your own estimation] under the mighty hand of God, that in due time He may exalt you. - "Lower yourself in your own estimation" means DON'T THINK YOU CAN SOLVE ALL YOUR PROBLEMS ON YOUR OWN! After all you weren't designed that way. We as humans are not capable of solving our own problems!