So last week I chronicled our adventurous Saturday morning at the campsite and told you I would have the rest of the story this week. Little did I know this Saturday would provide more material for this story. So here goes!
Anyone who knows me very well knows that I am not a very patient person. That could possibly be an understatement. I just was not blessed with patience from birth. I don’t know why, it’s just the way I have always been. For years I prayed for God to give me patience. I wanted to be the patient man that my dad is. I grew up with patience. He is one of the most patient human beings on the planet. When I met Kristin’s family I realized that her dad is the same way. So I have these two great examples of patience in my life, but that was just not the way I was wired.
I mentioned that for years I prayed for patience. I wanted God to wave His magic wand and instantly alter my personality and make me a patient person. I wanted Him to say poof, there is your patience. But the reality is that He didn’t do that. I would get frustrated and more impatient over time because I couldn’t get to where I wanted to be in this area of my life. But remember, His plan is always better.
I was impatient about being impatient. Just as a typical impatient person, I wanted it to change immediately and when it didn’t, it just got worse. Over time though, as I finally started to mature as a person and a Christian, I realized that God had spent years trying to instill patience in me. I just didn’t realize it yet. It’s a good thing God is patient!
Sometimes we don’t think God answers our prayers because we don’t see the answer dropped directly in front of us. But sometimes we just don’t look at the situation the right way. God puts us in situations to answer our prayers and make us better people, we just have to be looking for the opportunity.
Here are just two of the ways God spent years trying to help me attain patience. Roughly 20 years ago I met Kristin. We began dating in 2002 and got married in 2004. We had many differences just like all couples do. Some differences were small and some were not. Some caused arguments and some did not. We had one thing in common that will always stand the test of time though, and that is God.
Back to the patience issue. One of my biggest pet peeves is being late. I can’t stand to be late for so many reasons I won’t even go into. But the fact is I hate being late. I spoke of differences in Kristin and myself. This was one of those. It had never bothered her to be late. It just wasn’t a big deal to her. My philosophy was that if you weren’t at least 10 minutes early somewhere, you were late. She went with more of the notion that if you were only 10 minutes late, that’s not a bad day. (She proofreads these before I publish them, so yes she’s seen it and ok’d this part)
So you can see where this could lead, right. Arguments. We didn’t fight about a whole lot of things, but being on time was one of them. Sundays were the worst. We were late for church every week. My patience wore thin every week as I could see time ticking away and knew the result would be that we would be late. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I would make some comment that would send the morning into a tailspin and not end well. I tell all this in past tense to say that it has gotten better. Being late is a thing of the past most of the time for my wonderful bride. She has gotten so much better over the years. I brag on her all the time to those that know her well.
Here’s the point of that part of the story. God started giving me the opportunity to grow in patience long before I realized it. I had a chance every week to put into practice one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit by being patient with my wife as I could tell that we were not going to be on time to wherever we were going. I started to realize that being a little late from time to time wasn’t that big of an issue. It wasn’t worth causing us to fight or be mad all the way to church, or whatever event we were going to.
As time went on, I got better. I learned to not make the comments I once made (at least not every time). I learned that it was not good for our kids to see me getting frustrated with her or her with me. I figured out it was not good on our marriage for us to have these feelings every time we went somewhere. Guess what, her punctuality got better too. We are rarely late anywhere anymore. Funny how that works out, huh? When we embrace God working in our life, He gives us what we need.
The other thing that God did to give me a chance to improve in the patience department is that He gave me 3 wonderful kids. Those three kids can, well, test my patience quicker than about anything on Earth. I love them with all of my heart, but also can get riled up with them quickly as well. Anyone that has had kids will understand how this switch can be flipped quickly. Those that haven’t had kids but will, you will understand soon enough. As time has gone on, my patience with them has gotten better too. This process is a story for a whole other post. They would probably tell you I’m still not very patient, but they were too young to remember the early days.
So I hit on this topic of patience a little bit last week and knew this was the topic for this week. Then Saturday (yesterday) we had a flat tire on I40. We were actually in a little bit of a time crunch, so that added to the fun. Kristin and the kids were not sure what was going to come of that situation, but it was actually handled with patience as well. We had the tire changed in probably 15 minutes or so. I would recommend if you have a flat that you consult YouTube with your vehicle model and watch the video on how to find everything you need to change the tire on your car. The concept of changing a tire has not ever changed, but the placement of all the things you need to get the job done is different on every vehicle. YouTube saved us quite a bit of time because the tools are not all together and the owners manual is not much help. But anyway, there will be more of this event documented on my mid-week message on Facebook on Wednesday. Tune in to that to see more video details on that incident, live and in the moment.
God gives us things that will help us achieve the desires we have if we allow him to work in our life. By doing it this way, we learn about the process as we go and can help others understand and do the same as we did. We just have to be open minded and be looking for God’s answers and not expecting God to just hand it to us. We usually learn better if we have to work at it ourselves.
We must be intentional in everything we do. We must look for God’s answers to our prayers and embrace the opportunities to grow. I went years not realizing that an often tardy wife and 3 ornery kids were exactly what I needed! Thank you God for answered prayers!