Fruit of the Spirit: PATIENCE

Admittedly, I am a bit of a control freak. While I typically come off as someone who is very go with the flow, I usually have a timeline that I want to go exactly perfect to my planning.

In a lot of life, it feels like we can do our best to manufacture our timeline to our liking. But there are somethings that just feel out of our control. When my husband and I decided we were ready to start our family, we strategically planned the perfect month so it would best fit our schedule. A few months later, I found out I was pregnant. I remember thinking, thank you God this (my) timing is perfect! Only weeks later to lose our first baby to a miscarriage. I’ll never forget the devastation I felt - feeling confused and heartbroken and asking God why we didn’t get to have that baby here on earth.

Fast forward a few months, I was doing my best to lean on the Lord as I moved through my grief and sadness. One morning on the way to work, I was listening to the song, ‘Fruit Takes Time’ by SEU Worship. The lyrics, “I asked the Lord for patience, he threw me into the waiting.” Hit me like a ton of bricks. It was like God told me, “I wasn’t being patient,” okay whew thank you! 

God calls us to patience in every aspect of our life, big and small - patience with your annoying coworker, patience when your dog is taking too long to go to the bathroom in the snowstorm, the list goes on. But I think the hardest place to have patience is when you want something so badly in your life but you aren’t able to get it. Especially as a control freak.

After that day, I felt challenged to instead of asking God for a baby that week or month, I asked for His timing and patience in trusting Him. That is not easy prayer by the way! But why would I assume my plan is better than His?

When we lean on our understanding and personal plans, we are denying His Divine timing.

I read something one day that stuck with me on the subject of patience. “Maybe you don’t have a baby yet because your baby’s future best friend isn’t born, or their favorite school teacher hasn’t gone through college..” The list goes on and I think this is applicable to any waiting season you are in - maybe you aren’t married because your future spouse isn’t ready to lead you in a biblical marriage or your dream job couldn’t pay you the exact salary you need right now in your timing. God’s details are so much more intricate than we can ever imagine and I think that’s why we were called (and challenged) to have patience.

The Bible often talks about the importance on waiting on the Lord and having patience in trusting His timing:

-Psalm 27:14: Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord

-Lamentations 3:25: The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him

-James 1:3-4: For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

-Romans 8:25: But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

There are many other stories in the Bible where people have wanted something in a moment but God called them to patience to form and fashion them to be in that season in His perfect timing. 

I know I am not alone in my story of waiting for a child, and even more than that I know I am not alone in being in a season of waiting for the dreams placed on your heart that have not yet come to light yet. Here are a few items I’d challenge you with while you choose to wait faithfully and have patience with God’s perfect timing in your life.

Where is one area in your life you feel like you are white knuckling your timeline and not giving it to God?

Who is someone that can partner with you in prayer and hold you accountable to more patience?

What are some daily habits you can start to be faithful in waiting well?

At the end of the song I mentioned early, it says, “Thank God your ways are better than mine.” There’s power in God’s timing, and I am praying that you find peace in your patience and learn to trust the Lord more than ever before.