Patience…
Lord why don’t I have any and why is there such a push for
it? If I know that is a character flaw why do I desire it so much? Is it
because we all truly want what we can’t have? What’s so great about patience
and why do so many of us lack it. I’m not just talking about the patience that
comes with driving and not getting mad at the guy in front of us for cutting us
off (although if we are being completely transparent I could use of that kind
as well). No what I’m talking about is the kind of patience that comes from
love, mercy, grace. The deep stuff. The patience that allows you to be nice and
civil to that one person that you really just want to strangle, yet something
internally keeps you from screaming or saying that one thing you know will get
them to back off because you’ve finally crossed a line. The patience that
allows you to give grace in a situation where all you want to do is put that
person in their place and prove to the WHOLE WORLD they’re stupid and you the
calm cool collected biting your tongue person is AWESOMELY right… yet something
prevents you from doing just that. Is it common sense, is it patience, or is it
something else?
Have you ever met someone that you sit back later and find
yourself saying, “man they have the patience of a saint”? I want to be that
person and yet in order to be that person I would have to be tested and tempted
and put through the burning “fires” in order to learn from the mistakes of not
responding to that annoying person who won’t shut up. So that eventually when
that person is talking to get a reaction from me I can have a detachment that
allows me to appear to “have the patience of a saint”. Then again I want the genuine
thing the kind of patience that still allows me to care for that person yet not
get riled up by their ignorance. Is that even a thing that can happen?
I start to question if it’s a good idea to even write this
down. I mean right now as I write this my palms are sweaty and my heart is
pounding it’s almost like tempting fate asking for lightening to strike. Like
ha ha now what do you have? It’s a rhetorical question I am posing here just in
case the universe can read and wants to take me up on anything in this section
(for the record), but hang with me for another minute. How does one develop the
level of amazing grace? The patience of a saint, the kind of love for others
that surpasses all logic to where a person can give up their entire weekend to
help another person do something and (here’s the shocker) not complain about
it. Where another person can give up their possessions and live somewhere else.
Or donate all their time and money to the poor and not questions. Even better I
ask you this how does a person sit in a coffee shop without ear buds in and
listen to the person who sat down next to them uninvited and started talking
without looking for the exits?
What is it in those people that sets them apart? Is it a
gift? Is it patience? Is it grace? Or is it simply recognizing that we live in
a world so broken that the only way any of us are going to heal to give those
people who really need to be listened to an ear and someone who cares enough to
give them 5 minutes at a shop to listen to their chatter. After all it isn’t
personal they picked you because they have to tell someone. Maybe next time
instead of taking things so personal or as a personal attack or an inconvenience
maybe we should start looking at it as an opportunity to make that person walk
away thinking someone out there in this cold world cared enough to listen for 5
minutes or didn’t escalate my being a “jerk” to an even more embarrassing
situation. And in return we might experience the whole patience thing that
looks really good from a third party looking in from the outside. Or give
either way for one person in one moment we were the person with the patience of
a saint and after all wasn’t that what this whole article started off being
about?
