Having patience is hard.
It's the little things that creep under my skin. Like when the Internet is super slow and I squirm as I watch the blue loading bar slowly creep its way across the URL. Or when my mom spends 30 extra minutes every Sunday after church saying "goodbye" to all her friends [while I sit baking in the car in the parking lot because I thought we were leaving 30 minutes ago]. Or when I freak out because my dog has to spend 3 entire minutes sniffing every inch of our yard in the morning [5:45! EVERYDAY.] before she can decide on a grass patch worthy of her urine. Or maybe how I eat at least 3 lukewarm meals a week because I would rather choke my way through a cold-centered hamburger than wait for 150 extra seconds to go by on the microwave.
I've even been known to manually pop the toast in the toaster before it's "done."
Maybe you can relate to that. And as funny and harmless as some of those things are, I see that impatience creep into my spiritual walk ALL.THE.TIME. I don't know if I've ever continually prayed for something for longer than a week. Don't get me wrong--if I say I'm praying about it, I am--but really it just boils down to: It's a "yes" if I don't have a sinking feeling in my gut about it by tomorrow night. Maybe 2 nights from now if I'm feeling uber-disciplined.
What's worse?
I have a habit of finishing God's sentences.
I'll start to sense the Lord stirring something new in my life, and I'll immediately begin arranging the circumstances of my life to support what I'm assuming God is going to do next. And then when I assume wrongly, not only have I wasted my time pursuing something God wasn't leading me to in the first place, but I spend at least a week berating myself for having screwed up...again.
So damn over eager.
Cases in point? Oh, where do I begin. I'm only going to list two examples...any more and it would be too convicting.
Roll back to last August when my summer job ended. I had a college degree but no more direction than I felt when I graduated high school. When I felt God calling me unto Himself, I decided being "closer to Him" meant applying to an obscure Bible School in North Carolina. I did the 10 page application, figured out how I would move my stuff over there, had a phone interview, and then couldn't get a loan to save my life.
As life would have it, God was calling me to my parent's basement in Mitchell for awhile. Not North Carolina.
Or how about in January when I was getting ready to return to the US after two months in the Dominican Republic? In my prayer time I was asking God for my next steps. The conversation sounded something like this...:
Me: "God what am I going to do when I get back home?"
God: "Well, next I want you t------"
Me: "To-sell-all-my-stuff-and-ask-people-for-money-so-I-can-fly-back-to-the-Dominican-Republic-and-live-here-the-rest-of-my-life-as-a-missionary! What a great idea. I'm so glad we had this talk."
God: "......"
EHHHHHH, wrong.
Yep. This sentence-finishing-thing seems to be a trend. Guessing and planning and arranging. Starting and stopping. Explaining and deciphering. Anticipating and worrying. For a girl who struggles with the toaster, I find my patience in spiritual matters is tested often. Thing is, it's tiring to fill-in-the-blanks.
The last three weeks I've been feeling the Lord starting something new again in me. And for the first time, I'm sitting back and enjoying the ride. Because [I'm learning] if I walk through today constantly straining to get a glimpse of what's coming over the horizon, I forget that He's holding my hand right now. And if I'd just hang onto that hand through enough "todays", eventually [together] we'll reach a place with a better view.
Proverbs 3:
"5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight."
Are you trying to finish some of God's sentences? How's that working for you?
It's the little things that creep under my skin. Like when the Internet is super slow and I squirm as I watch the blue loading bar slowly creep its way across the URL. Or when my mom spends 30 extra minutes every Sunday after church saying "goodbye" to all her friends [while I sit baking in the car in the parking lot because I thought we were leaving 30 minutes ago]. Or when I freak out because my dog has to spend 3 entire minutes sniffing every inch of our yard in the morning [5:45! EVERYDAY.] before she can decide on a grass patch worthy of her urine. Or maybe how I eat at least 3 lukewarm meals a week because I would rather choke my way through a cold-centered hamburger than wait for 150 extra seconds to go by on the microwave.
I've even been known to manually pop the toast in the toaster before it's "done."
Maybe you can relate to that. And as funny and harmless as some of those things are, I see that impatience creep into my spiritual walk ALL.THE.TIME. I don't know if I've ever continually prayed for something for longer than a week. Don't get me wrong--if I say I'm praying about it, I am--but really it just boils down to: It's a "yes" if I don't have a sinking feeling in my gut about it by tomorrow night. Maybe 2 nights from now if I'm feeling uber-disciplined.
What's worse?
I have a habit of finishing God's sentences.
I'll start to sense the Lord stirring something new in my life, and I'll immediately begin arranging the circumstances of my life to support what I'm assuming God is going to do next. And then when I assume wrongly, not only have I wasted my time pursuing something God wasn't leading me to in the first place, but I spend at least a week berating myself for having screwed up...again.
So damn over eager.
Cases in point? Oh, where do I begin. I'm only going to list two examples...any more and it would be too convicting.
Roll back to last August when my summer job ended. I had a college degree but no more direction than I felt when I graduated high school. When I felt God calling me unto Himself, I decided being "closer to Him" meant applying to an obscure Bible School in North Carolina. I did the 10 page application, figured out how I would move my stuff over there, had a phone interview, and then couldn't get a loan to save my life.
As life would have it, God was calling me to my parent's basement in Mitchell for awhile. Not North Carolina.
Or how about in January when I was getting ready to return to the US after two months in the Dominican Republic? In my prayer time I was asking God for my next steps. The conversation sounded something like this...:
Me: "God what am I going to do when I get back home?"
God: "Well, next I want you t------"
Me: "To-sell-all-my-stuff-and-ask-people-for-money-so-I-can-fly-back-to-the-Dominican-Republic-and-live-here-the-rest-of-my-life-as-a-missionary! What a great idea. I'm so glad we had this talk."
God: "......"
EHHHHHH, wrong.
Yep. This sentence-finishing-thing seems to be a trend. Guessing and planning and arranging. Starting and stopping. Explaining and deciphering. Anticipating and worrying. For a girl who struggles with the toaster, I find my patience in spiritual matters is tested often. Thing is, it's tiring to fill-in-the-blanks.
The last three weeks I've been feeling the Lord starting something new again in me. And for the first time, I'm sitting back and enjoying the ride. Because [I'm learning] if I walk through today constantly straining to get a glimpse of what's coming over the horizon, I forget that He's holding my hand right now. And if I'd just hang onto that hand through enough "todays", eventually [together] we'll reach a place with a better view.
Proverbs 3:
"5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight."
Are you trying to finish some of God's sentences? How's that working for you?
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