When I
looked up the word “impatient” in the dictionary, I read a nice little
description of myself. Impatient means to not accept delay, to be restless in
desire or expectation. It also means to be hasty or anxious. I am not one to
accept delay. When I ask for a favor, I like to see results. I am a results
driven kind of personality. But, the Lord recently showed me that my impatience
was more than restlessness, or expecting results, it was a lack of trust in
Him.
“And
which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? If you then are not
able to do the least, why are you anxious for the rest?” Luke 12:25-26
We know
that the Bible teaches us to be “anxious for nothing” (Philippians 4:6) but
sometimes we want what we want when we want it. How many times have we prayed
and prayed for something but had to wait years for the Lord to make it come to
pass? We pray and we hear “wait” or “not time yet”. It is in these moments that
I begin to grow impatient. I find myself wondering if I even heard from the Lord.
Perhaps He did not say yes to my prayer, perhaps I heard what I wanted to hear.
Maybe He wants me to do this first or maybe He needs me to take this one on
myself. And we all know that taking it up and doing it on our own will lead to
complete disaster!
Jesus
asks us why we worry about things when there is absolutely nothing we can do
about it. Why are we anxious, why are we impatient, do we not trust God to make
all things work together for our good? Do we trust Him enough to wait? Do we
trust Him enough to be patient through the waiting? When I grow impatient, I
begin to doubt. Impatience is the fruit of a heart that does not fully trust
the Lord and His faithfulness.
I saw
this in me just the other day. As my husband and I were waiting to hear about
whether the house was ours or not, I found myself growing impatient. I was
positive that the Lord has given us His promise and that He had confirmed this
was the path we were to take, but it seemed like it was not going to happen
anytime soon. I felt like time was running out, and this caused me to waver in
my faith. I began to worry, I began to wonder, I began to doubt and all of
these fruits were born of my impatient heart.
The
bible tells us to be anxious for nothing, (Phil. 4:6) that we are to wait upon
the Lord (Psalm 27:14). We are to trust in the Lord with all our heart. When we
become impatient, waiting and trusting fly out the window and anxiousness and
worry come and take roost. If I am trusting than I believe in Him, His timing,
His purposes, His will, His ways. I believe that my God is able to do above and
beyond all that I ask or think. But in His time, not mine. We are to believe and
know that God is always in control. Nothing takes Him by surprise because He
has known from the foundations of the world the very details of our lives.
Nothing comes upon us by chance, we believe this- we believe that God is the
great conductor of our lives, but when we have to wait, we become impatient and
we begin to fall down in our faith, and we lose our foot hold on the truth, and
the foundation we stand on becomes sand and we start to sink.
The
Lord has shown me that when I become impatient, I am losing my trust in who He
is. I am focusing on the here and now instead of He who exists outside of time.
Jesus asks us why we worry. Is there anything we can do about the situation that
God the Father has not already covered? Can we make the situation better? Can
we do anything about it? Can we make ourselves grow? No, we cannot, so why do
we allow our impatient hearts to lead us into worry and doubt? We must, when
impatience finds its way into our lives, we must lay it down and lean upon our
God and Father once again.
I
sometimes forget that my God is not a genie who desires to give me everything I
want when I want it. Our God loves us so much that sometimes waiting is what is
best for us. We believe that there is a purpose and a reason behind everything
that happens in our lives, because God is in complete control. There is a
purpose and a reason behind why He asks us to wait, or why He does not answer
our petitions right away. If we believe He is God of our lives then we must
also believe that He is God of our circumstances and trust Him completely. I
see the fruit of impatience in my heart many times, and I pray today that the
Lord would help me to trust Him, to lean on Him and not on my own understanding
(Proverbs 3:5). I pray that when my heart begins to grow anxious, that I would
look to Him and His word and see that He is completely and utterly, always and
forever in Sovereign control of every detail of my simple life. My impatient
heart is a heart that does not trust in God. May the Lord God forgive me for my
impatient heart, and may He receive the glory, honor and praise, through Jesus
Christ my Lord, forever and ever. Amen and Amen.