Patiently Waiting

After a lot of thought, I came to the conclusion that patience is not one of my best qualities. It is something that I have definitely been trying to improve on, but am making slow progress with. One of the things that comes from my lack of patience is frustration. I become easily frustrated if things are not done as quickly as I want them to, or if something that I want to happen just isn't happening. Another area that I notice frustration is when I am expecting something to happen or I am planning something that is supposed to happen, and then all of a sudden things change quickly. I do not practice patience by any means in those areas. The past couple of weeks has taught me that I need to be working in this area. I have been around others who have shown me what it means to be patient, but then I have also been around others who have annoyed me because I felt as if they were being impatient of the dumbest things. This has taught me two different things. The first being that there is a lot of room for me to grow in the area of patience. The second being that I need to work on the frustrations. Just because someone else is being impatient with something that I feel is unimportant does not mean that it is not something that is of importance to them. Rather than becoming frustrated and lacking patience, I can step back and evaluate the situation instead.

The Heart

In a few words, I would describe my day as extremely long. I felt as if it was never going to end. Last night, I was able to have a long conversation with someone. Although there were things in the conversation that made me feel uncomfortable, I realize that they were things that I needed to hear. I am not even sure if this person knew that this was something that I needed to hear. As I went through my day today, I realized that there were so many times where I had means thoughts about someone else, or my intentions were not the greatest. I began to become annoyed with myself, because I couldn't stand that I was doing these things. One thing that I wanted to examine was the state of my heart. I wasn't ready to accept that I had allowed my heart to harden to certain things. I was so set on blaming other people and the things around me rather than blaming myself. I came upon Jeremiah 17:9 tonight, which not only verified my thoughts, but also spoke truth into my life. So, basically, rather than acting or thinking based off of the things that I feel, I know that I have a God that I can turn to. I know that my heart and my feelings are not going to be the most accurate or pure reasons.

Suffering

Well, there probably isn't anything more depressing than seeing a blog post entitled suffering. In my mind, it wasn't supposed to sound depressing, so don't worry. This morning in church one of the passages that was read talked about the sufferings of generations to come because of the sins of the previous generation. I of course began to think negatively. Why is God portrayed as a forgiving and merciful God, yet He still punishes people for sins that their ancestors committed? As I sat there and thought about the different ways that I have seen suffering and personally suffered, I noticed that I was becoming angry with God. How was any of this fair? After a while, I realized that if I were going to use the same thinking as I was this morning, I could say that it isn't fair that I am living in a sinful world because Adam and Eve decided to go against God. As I began to think about this, I started to laugh. Not because this scenario is humorous, but because I actually thought that if I were in Eve's situation that I would do something different. How can I blame the sins of others for my suffering, when I know that my own sin has caused other people to suffer? Rather than seeing my suffering as someone elses fault and blaming God, I can show mercy and grace towards other people and remember how my sin has caused suffering in other people's lives.

He Answers

There have been many times in my life where I have wondered whether or not God truly hears my prayers or not. I had someone once tell me that God answers prayers the way that He wants to and within His will, not necessarily the way that I want things to work out. After hearing that, I then assumed that nothing I wanted or planned was within God's will. I carried this out to every plan that I made. I had these desires to do certain things, but I believed that God didn't want me to do those things. Lately, I have relied a lot on prayer. I am not saying that I never prayed before, but there have been times recently where I have felt as if prayer was all that I had. I am slowly learning that it is not necessarily that God doesn't want me doing any of the things that I would like to do, its just that it is all in His timing. Just because I want something to happen right away or I want it to happen at the exact moment that I would like it to doesn't mean that God is going to it allow it to happen. I am slowly learning that within His timing, He will answer prayers. God does listen, and He does answer in His own way and His own time. Simple truth that many of us have probably heard many times, but one that can be hard to consider.

Out of My Hands, Into God's

One of the biggest things that I struggle with is seeing other people make choices that are not good for them. Of course, I think that I know what is better for them and think that I can make decent choices for them. Last night I was having a discussion with a couple of people, and I noticed that this was something that I was struggling with. One person told me that there are so many times when we worry about people or try and have control over them because we think that we are the people that can ultimately help them, but that is not true. There are many times where we have people come and go from our lives, so why do we think that it should be different for other people? Why should we think that we are the only ones that can be in their lives? The most important piece of advice that I received from this person is that rather than trying to worry and control our relationship to another person, we should pray that Godly people will come into their life and influence them. After hearing this, I realized that this again is a control issue. Rather than thinking that I need all of the control and that what I know is best, I can turn it over to the care of God and allow Him to work His plan out.

Joy and Happiness

Recently, I have come across the passage in James that talks about considering it joy when you face trials of many kinds. When I first read it a few years back, I began to question how one could possibly find joy in a situation that would be considered a trial. Of course, there are some trials that I would consider better than others, but I still wouldn't think that I would experience joys in those situations. One of the things that I learned in college from several people was that joy and happiness are not the same thing. Yes, I know, simple truth, but for me, it was difficult to grasp. After thinking about this verse and my newly developed comprehension of the difference between joy and happiness, I realized that I can have joy in situations that are not the greatest. This passage is not telling me that I have to be extremely happy and overwhelmed with happiness. But, I can be joyful in the fact that I am a child of God that can experience trials and suffer for His name. Will I be happy? Probably not. The pain that we may experience is not something that we would exhibit happiness over. It is okay not to like whatever we are going through, but it is still possible for us to experience some sort of joy.

In The Way

Today, I had a long 8 or so hour drive back to Indiana. Of course, I scanned the radio mot of the time. On a side note, I think that even if I did find a station that was good, I still pushed the button to scan because that was more entertaining after a while. Anyways, that was a tangent. One of the songs that I continuously heard was Jesus, Friend of Sinners by Casting Crowns. When I first heard this song, I was somewhat annoyed because I figured that it would be just another, over-played song. Each time I heard it, I heard the same part over and over again. The gist of the line was that we allow people to see what we are against rather than what we are for. We allow our own judgments and criticisms get into the way of who God is and what being a child of God really means. As I was driving, I began to think of the many times that I have allowed these things to interfere with my relationships. I have many people in my life who are not followers of Christ, and I know that there are many times where I am judgmental and somewhat critical of them because they are "sinning". First thought that came to my mind was that I cannot expect them to follow the same "laws" that I do when they do not claim to be children of God. The second thought that came to my mind was that they are not seeing Christ through me. If I am a representative of who Christ is, then I am doing a miserable job. Rather than showing the graceful, merciful, and loving God, they are seeing a judgmental God who has a ton of rules. Rather than being judgmental and critical of others, I can show the people in my life who Christ really is.