Patience?

For a long time, I knew God was trying to teach me patience. I knew it simply because trials I had faced all seemed to require patience to some extent, and dealing with patience was always the worst part about it. I began to get really frustrated like "why do I have to keep learning this over and over again? Its just worse every time" well obviously I hadn't learned it. I also want to add that I fully believe this will be something, like many other things, that I am going to continue learning for the rest of my life. There will never be a time that I will fully understand it, and God will continue to teach me more and more as I continue to walk with Him through life. Patience was always just a bigger battle. When I had to go through anything that required any kind of patience I would get anxious, frustrated, then discouraged. I wanted nothing to do with it. I didn't want to learn it, I wanted to be done with it. Finally something hit me that totally changed my perspective. I was viewing patience as basically being content with waiting around. Where as I think God allows us to go through seasons of patience that we are able to prepare our hearts, for something that is to come. As well as pursue Him in those times.

Patience is not just being "okay" with sitting around like a bump on a log. It is being content with what God is doing in your life weather or not you see it. It is about continuing to pursue your relationship with him, and trust in his plan for you even when it feels like nothing is happening. "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God" -Philippians 4:6 This verse does not end at "Do not be anxious about anything". That is just half of it, and I believe the second half is equally important. "but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God". We need to do this, and then we need to continue doing this. 

 1 John 5:14 says "This is the confidence we have in approaching God, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us." God wants us to approach him, and present our requests to him. That doesn't mean we can just ask God for anything we want and expect to immediately receive it. Gods timing is always perfect. Just because we don't get immediate results, doesn't mean God is not at work.

"God never hurries. There are no deadlines against which he must work. Only to know this is to quiet our spirits and relax our nerves" -A.W. Tozer (The Pursuit of God)

If you are feeling like nothing in happening, or nothing is working out, be patient by seeking and following after the Lord. He will show you what he is doing, you may just have to wait. At the end of it He will take you on a journey far better than we could ever plan for ourselves.