A Lesson in Patience

So excited today...after another three weeks of waiting, today was finally to be the day when my wife and I found out the gender of our new arrival (due to be here January 15, 2012 give-or-take).  We get to her Dr.'s office, and after a good forty-five minutes of ultrasound, they determined that the wee one was "too mobile" to make any clear determination on the gender, and we ended up having to re-schedule yet again.

Keep in mind, this was the third time in this pregnancy that this had happened to us.  I was frustrated, to say the least.  My boss was bending over backwards with my work schedule, especially since as of last Friday we are down to one car for the whole family.  I worked it out to where I can finally be there with my wife on one of her Dr. visits (a rare thing in Retail, even more so now that my store is officially in "Holiday Prep Mode") only to be told to... wait.

Waiting.  Patience.  Delayed gratification.  It has always been said that "patience is a virtue," yet I have never met a person on this planet who enjoys being stuck in a long check-out line at the store.  I have never seen a military wife ecstatic when she hears that her husband will not be back in the States for another year (or more, depending on the conflict).  The funny thing is, Scripture tells us that Patience is one of the fruits of the Spirit.  Like it or not, God expects us, those who claim to be "little Christ's," to be patient...or at the least, to learn to develop the habit.

Strangely, spending my time writing about the Christian faith makes it no easier.  A friend once commented about Christians in general, "If you repeat anything to yourself often enough, you can believe it."  Is that what I do?  I go over and over the words, trying to get them just right.  But how can I know whether I truly believe them or am just repeating them to myself, like a telephone solicitor rehearsing a sales pitch?

George Everett Ross makes this same point, though in different words:

 "I have served in the ministry thirty years, almost thirty-one.  I have come to understand that there are two kinds of faith.  One says if and the other says though.  One says if:  "If everything goes well, if my life is prosperous, if I'm happy, if no one I love dies, if I'm successful, then I will believe in God and say my prayers and go to the church and give what I can afford."  The other says though: though the cause of evil prosper, though I sweat in Gethsemane, though I must drink my cup at Calvary--nevertheless, precisely then, I will trust the Lord who made me.  So Job cries: 'Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.' "

May we remember to be a patient people.  After all, the Lord is definitely that way with me, on an almost daily basis...