patience |ˈpāSHəns| noun
|the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset|
Does that hit close to home, or strike a little fear in your heart? I hear people jokingly say all the time, “Whatever you do, don’t pray for patience!” And they’re basically saying if you pray for patience that God will cause all types of circumstances to come about which will test your patience. Actually, I wonder what would happen if we saw the testing of our patience NOT as something we should shy away from…but seeing it as an opportunity to allow God to do something wonderful inside our hearts & lives! Galatians 5:22 tells us that patience is a fruit of the Spirit. When we’re lacking patience, it’s because we lack something that God is wanting and willing to give us! Praying for the kind of heart that is patient is one of the wisest things we can do. If there is a gift God wants to give, I do not want to miss out on that. We live in such a self-seeking, self-serving culture. What if…just what if we were willing to pray for a greater capacity to accept and tolerate delay because we actually trust God? What if we had a greater capacity to accept and tolerate trouble because we trust that God is good and working things together for our good (Romans 8:28). What if…seriously just what if we began to pray for an increase in our ability to accept and tolerate suffering (whatever that looks like in your life or mine) without getting angry, without getting upset, BECAUSE we believe that God is good, He hears our prayers, and He means to bring about something greater than we could ever ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20)?