"Patience"

By Zach Wood

 Galatians 5:22-23

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

gentleness and self-control.

I am writing a devotional on a an aspect of the fruit of the Spirit that I am not good with.  I will let you know that right up front.  Who is with me?  Anyone else out there who fails sometimes miserably with this part?  I am thankful to have married such a wonderful woman who is very patient and who encourages me when I am impatient.  I look at so many other people in my life who are very patient and I wonder why I ever became such an impatient person.  It is not that I enjoy being this way, but it is not easy to just change.  I think of all the other aspects of the fruit of the Spirit and I know this is one that I have struggled with more than any others for most of my life. 

I believe that the reason we have so many problems being patient is because it involves waiting.  Waiting is something we just do not enjoy doing.  Waiting is not moving forward in any way.  It is just doing nothing until something happens.  I have been reading a book lately and a chapter I read was talking about how we struggle with waiting.  So many other situations in life involve dealing with something and working through it.  However, waiting involves just being patient until the next move is to be made.  That is a hard decision to make.  I do not like waiting and anyone who knows me knows that for a fact. 

I share my own struggles with patience so that, hopefully, many of you who also struggle in this area can realize it is a part of life that will always require perseverance and determination.  I probably will struggle with patience the rest of my life.  If I had to name a time when patience is extremely hard for me is in traffic.  When I am on the road, I can get a little road rage.  My wife always reminds me to just calm down and have a little patience.  Anyone else out there who struggles with a little road rage on the impatience path?  I am sure many of us do. 

People who show patience around me show the love of God like I have never seen before.  People who are patient are very loving and considerate of others.  I look up to these people and appreciate their ability to have patience.

I appreciate the patience all of you have had the past two weeks waiting on another devotional to come out while things have been kind of crazy with family and life here.  I say all of these things to encourage you and to remind you that it is possible to be patient if this is something you constantly struggle with.  When people see patience in you, they see beauty coming from you.  It is a beauty that not everyone has and probably would love to have.  If you are a patient person, I commend you.  If you are not a patient person, then daily ask God to give you strength to be patient so that someone else can have an opportunity to see Christ in you.  Isn't that worth be patient for?