Patience

Some days I want to say, "Lord, give me patience, and give it to me right now!"  Why is patience so hard?  I can think of a few possible reasons:

1.  We are a society of instant gratification.  We don't have to wait for food (fast food), movies (on-demand video & DVR), music (iTunes), so why should we have to wait for God?
2.  It is culturally acceptable to be "me" focused.  When we focus on ourselves and our wants instead of other people we become even more demanding and less patient.
3.  We are relationship-deprived.  Our communication methods focus less on building a relationship and more on superficial interactions.
4.  We are a sideline society.  We expect to be entertained rather than be engaged.

I'm sure there are a great deal more items that could be listed.  It all ads up to a whole lot of people who haven't had the opportunity (or maybe, more accurately, haven't wanted the opportunity) to learn patience.  Patience has a different appearance.

1.  Patience asks us to wait.  We may not like waiting, but we are able to slow down the chaotic pace of our lives when we realize that waiting is natural.  Who doesn't like to get out of the frenzy of the demands in our life?
2.  Patience means sometimes putting others first.  It's not that we are never first, or always last, but that we see others' needs as well as our own.  We learn the gratification that comes from fulfilling another person's desires.  Which ties directly into . . .
3.  Patience needs others to work best.  When we involve others in our lives, we begin to learn and care about them.  This makes it a little easier to be patient and may even increase our desire to put someone else first.
4.  Patience, while it can be experienced/struggled with alone, grows even more when we share our challenges with someone else.  It can be God, a friend, confidant, or the person stuck in the elevator with you.  If we participate in life, involving others, it makes the waiting easier to bear.

Yes, this is a narrow view of patience.  Waiting on important news or medical test results may make it much harder to connect with the virtues of patience.  But we are not meant to journey alone, so every time we are asked to wait, whether it is in our control or not, our journey is made easier when we share our burdens and our joys.