“Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus…” Romans 15:5

Impatience

Walk His Way Revisited

I could feel my skin crawling with impatience. I wanted to tap my foot. To reach out my hand and do it for her. I wanted to roll my eyes at her slowness. I knew the best way, the quickest way, the…right way.

I’m ashamed to tell you that this impatience was with my aging mother. She surely never did this to me when I was a child, as she trained me to cook, sew, garden, clean house, and iron.

If you have children, you have experienced this same feeling. We know we should be letting them learn as they go along, but sometimes we’re just in a hurry. Or we feel we’ve shown them how to do a thing so many times before, we just don’t want to do it again.

I hate that feeling of wasting time. After all, I’ll never get it back! I need to remember that the time I’m so impatiently watching pass me by does not belong only to me. Max Lucado says, “We share time with others—it’s not just our time.” Time can’t belong to a person. It is given to us all—the exact same 24 hours each day is given to every person alive, all at the same time. We all have “now.” We may not have tomorrow, but we all have “now.”

The ten minutes it takes my grandchild to tie his shoes does not belong only to me, and I have no right to be impatient as if the time is only mine. I am sharing those ten minutes with him. My expenditure of the time is to watch, be interested, and encourage. His expenditure of the exact same ten minutes is to struggle, to learn, to succeed. When I’m patient, it’s a win-win. When I’m impatient, we both lose what could have been gain.

Every moment that passes is not a “waste” of time, but rather a “use” of time.

I need to remind myself how patient our loving Father is with me. How many times has He told me something? How often has He stood by me when I was crabby and impossible to live with? When did He ever turn His back on me as I struggled to learn something? Was He exasperated when I forgot His Word? Did He take over for me when I was slow?

Thankfully, He does reach out to help me when I’m stuck. But it’s only when I’m truly stuck, because He knows my muscles develop when I exercise them. He stands by, reminding, encouraging, watching—but not doing it for me.

He shares His time with us, just like that.

Father, teach me to unselfishly share “my” time. Those ten minutes have one purpose for me, and another purpose for someone else. Give me patient love. Amen.