The God Slot: The courage to wait

WE have become a very impatient society. We want things done yesterday! We want instant satisfaction, instant success, instant fulfillment. It does not matter about the others, ‘my’ needs must have a priority.

We see this impatience particularly on our roads, people queuing up, getting irritated when they are held back, fuming when there is a delay of one kind or another. Growing up I never heard of the term ‘road rage,’ but now everyone knows what it is about and if we are really honest we have all felt it in some form or another, mild or otherwise. Ask any receptionist at a medical centre about impatience and their experiences would fill many volumes.

We are told in 1Cor.13:4 “love is always patient and kind.” In St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians he writes, “Bear with one another charitably, in complete selflessness, gentleness and patience.” Finally in the letter of St James 5:7-8 we hear the following, “Now be patient brothers and sisters until the Lord’s coming. Think of a farmer: How patient he waits for the precious fruit of the ground until it has had the autumn rains and the spring rains. You too have to be patient: do not lose heart.”

One lesson of patience is that you don’t always get what you want. You may want something right now but may not get it for a while, if ever. You will however always get what you need, even if it does not fit into your mental picture.

So many of us don’t know how to live with things as they are, how to live in a situation just as it is. We feel we have to change it, make it better, we don’t think things will be OK if they’re left alone. We think there is a difference between something not happening soon enough and it’s not working out the way we think it should. Yet these thoughts come from the same place in the mind, from the judgment that the situation is wrong the way it is. What does being impatient ever get us?

The key to patience is knowing that eventually everything is going to be fine, that there is a plan, God’s plan. It is easy to forget this, and therefore many people try to control situations that would work out as they were meant to in their own perfect time. Patience is like a muscle that must regularly be used, exercised and trusted. If we don’t practice using the muscle in little, everyday experiences, we won’t have a strong muscle to support us through life’s bigger challenges. That’s why it is important to develop a deep faith where healing is always at work. The mind wants to believe that changing our circumstances will bring us peace. The mind thinks we’ve got to do something. But the reality is that we can relax in the circumstances, as they are now, knowing that deep patience will bring deep healing and peace.

Life is a series of experiences everyone goes through. There is a reason for every experience, even if we don’t see it; there is a point to it all. But it is difficult for us to learn these lessons when we’re impatiently screaming, “I don’t like this! I want it to change!” Sometimes we just have to courageously endure the experience, rather than deny, complain, or try to change it.

Every experience will move us toward greater good and healing. The wonderful news is that we don’t have to do anything to get this right. We simply live life as it is happening. The first step in becoming more patient is giving up the need to fix or change things – it is having the awareness that some things are the way they are for a reason, even if we don’t think so or can’t see it. If something is not changeable, try to see it as not broken. Try to find a little faith in the process and the unfolding of things. Somewhere in God’s overarching plan everything that happens to us has a purpose. That is faith. Having patience is having faith.

In faith, you have to remember that no experience is wasted. Most people at the end of life would not even trade in their bad experiences, for they learned a lot from everything that happened to them. Everything you go though, every storm in life, has its place so that in time, you will become the person God has always wanted you to be. The picture is much bigger than you are able to see. The key lies in trusting – and having patience.