on patience

As the season of Lent begins, I am reminded of the significance of the seasons of waiting in our lives, of how God uses those seasons to mold us and shape us into who we need to be.

Waiting is perhaps one of the most difficult of spiritual disciplines.

I find that I myself have the attention span of a gnat; I can’t sit still for more than an hour at a time and constantly feel the need to rush around, as though time is a limited resource when in reality God gives us all the time we need, if we’ll just trust Him. I’ve been anything but patient these last few months, always trying to take my desires and needs into my own hands, unwilling to allow the outcome to be in His.

Patience is so hard because it requires us to be instead of do. We are a doing people: we know better how to manage a task that’s in front of us than to wait for an outcome that is out of our control. Patience requires that we stop our meaningless flailing (because that is what we do when we are not trusting God) and allow a deeper and more substantial truth to enter our lives, a truth that we simply have to wait for. It is painful and it is frustrating, but it is so rewarding in the end. Hold on to that.

This season of Lent, I would like to learn how to rest in the waiting; how to be okay with not knowing all the answers and simply being present in the now. The present is all we get, so we need to make the most of it. God will reveal things to us when the time is right- you’ve seen Him do this in the past and you know He can be trusted to do it in the future. His promises never fail, so we can be assured of that during our season of waiting. And when we come out of it to the wonderful joy that God has prepared for us ahead, we will rejoice with gladness that we stuck with Him.