One of the warnings you’re always told in Sunday School growing up is “Don’t ever pray for patience!”

Because what ends up happening is that instead of God giving you the patience to deal with things that are happening now, you instead are giving new situations where you have to figure out how to handle them. One usually walks away feeling severely stressed out.

I’ve talked before about how I feel about waiting. Being patient is not my strong suit.  When I get interested in something, I dive in headfirst almost immediately. Sometimes I feel like I get in over my head. Instead of checking out my surroundings and observing first, I want to make things happen as soon as I can. I think part of it is a fear that once I become aware of something, I want to make it happen because I’m scared that something else will happen. That it was disappear or something else will take it away.

I’ve mentioned before how I feel like I’m a late bloomer. And it seems like I’m finally learning that it’s going to be ok. I could spout out all that clichéd stuff about “Good things come to those who wait” and how “God isn’t going to give you something until you’re ready for it.” But that’s not always what you want to hear when you’re in the middle of the situation.

For me, I’m learning that I live a lot in my head. And sometimes I just need to stop thinking. I’m realizing how much of a temptation it is for me to just sit there and try to over think a situation to try to find out every possible scenario. I try to not to talk about it too much with my friends, just enough to get their opinion and then I journal. But I’m also learning that it’s not healthy to keep rehashing things over in your mind because if you keep doing that, you’ll just keep finding ways to beat yourself down.

So instead, I’ve learned to acknowledge whatever it is I’m waiting on, let out the initial emotional outburst with those I trust, and then put it aside and wait. Hopefully what happens in the wait is that my emotions become controlled, things settle down, and I just see how things proceed naturally vs. forcing things to happen.

Wisdom waits. Wisdom is patient. Blurting out or acting on your feelings in the bloom of their creation is a tempting but foolish thing to do. “Do you see a man who is hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him.” (Proverbs 29:20) – from The Sacred Search by Gary Thomas