Patience, waiting, slowing down. All concepts that seem foreign to our day and age.
Everything is about instant gratification, from movies on demand to music downloads in seconds. We want what we want NOW! In fact if our computer is a little slower than normal at powering up or the Internet has to search for content, we grow frustrated and either complain or abandon the project. I’ve even seen a commercial that was advertising our impatience as a society to promote their product.
Unfortunately, impatience is not a virtue. As usual, the nature that comes to us easily is the one we need to fight against. I'm as guilty as the next person when it comes to impatience. But our lives are surrounded in the necessity to stop and wait. And it's good for us to not have everything we want instantly. It makes us realize we aren't in control, that we need to work and achieve goals over time.
I have recently been convicted that I need to pray for patience. I can't just decide to wait and the struggle is over. I have to continually be seeking God's timing and will and waiting for Him to reveal what He has for me. I know what I want Him to do but it's not up to me. I think we can all remember a time in our lives when we seemed to wait forever before we saw God's leading but now looking back, we realize the timing was perfect and we would have messed it up had we charged through with our plans.
As we get closer to the new year, I've been thinking of things I want to do differently and trying to adopt good habits now to carry over. Prov. 3:5-7 doesn't necessarily say "wait" but it does talk about trust and God guiding our steps.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
We often forget verse 7 but it’s an important reminder. If we are thinking too highly of ourselves or of our ability to control a situation, we will struggle to demonstrate patience. Gardening has been a wonderful way to help me “grow” {wink, wink} in patience.
Toward the middle of spring, Tommy borrowed a tiller and over turned a section of grass in our yard. He added a metal border to set the boundary and I got on my hands and knees, filling wheelbarrows full of grass chunks that I couldn’t breakdown. I hoed the dirt, leveled it off, and started sprinkling seeds.
I had no reason or pattern to my scattering. I just wanted flowers to fill every corner. I gave the dirt and seeds a gentle sprinkle of water. Each day I wandered out and gazed at my patch of dirt. It wasn’t long before I saw a sprout but it was a weed! Pluck, out it came!
But slowly, gradually, I saw shoots that I recognized as the stalk of a zinnia or cosmos. And they slowly got taller. They gently held up buds waiting to blossom. Finally, at the end of the summer, my little corner garden was one wild expanse of color! But it took patience. And in the waiting I still needed to water the sprouts, I pulled out the weeds, I dug out the grass that slipped under the metal border.
Was it worth it? Definitely! Am I dreaming about next year’s flowers? Absolutely!
Waiting isn’t easy. It’s not a skill that is learned once and never revisited. But it is worth it.
Photo by Daniel Oberg on Unsplash