Lord Give Me Patience, Right Now

I am, by nature, an impatient person. I will usually drive to another restaurant (which takes longer) rather than put my name on a waiting list. I have often wondered allowed if there is not something faster than instant gratification.

            I say this as a bit of a confession and certainly not to brag. For what I have described may be how I am wired, but it is not God’s way with the world. While I live in a world of email, cell phones and Fed Ex, I still worship and serve the God who made the Hebrews take 40 years on the otherwise quick trip through the Sinai desert to the Promised Land.

            For an eternal being, I assume patience comes rather naturally. Not being time bound, God is more concerned with what is best for us than with how long it takes us to get there. And the time itself is part of the solution. So, if the Hebrews needed a generation for a desert hike, then it would take a generation.

            But that’s not what I want. I want to get on with it. Keep things moving. Make some progress. Get ahead. And all of these are just ways of saying that I continually struggle with rushing out ahead of God’s will. I can charge past my leader out to a crossroads with no idea where God’s will would guide me.

            The French pastor Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) observed of human nature, “We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new, and yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—and that it may take a very long time.”

            The Sinai desert was, for the Hebrews, the essential intermediate stage between working as slaves under Pharaoh in Egypt to living free in the Promised Land. It was an instable, uncertain time and the people grumbled to Moses saying that they were better off in Egypt. The intermediate stage lasted longer than they wanted it to, but not longer than it needed to last.

            De Chardin went on to write, “Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that His hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.”

            This is the part with which I have the most difficulty. When things slow down or stop—when I can’t push ahead—I often feel like I need to force things forward. My slogan might be something like, “If it jambs, force it. If it breaks, it needed fixing anyway.” But I have found through experience that the wall I hit may be an answer to prayer.

For example, when I graduated from college and was praying for that the Statesboro Herald would find themselves in need of a photographer, so that I could stay in town and start work. The job did come available right in time, but I didn’t get it. Then I was available a month later for a better situation in Warner Robins that more quickly led to me being able to advance, and allowed for my future wife to work for the same newspaper. If I had gotten the job I wanted, things would not have worked out as well.

            So the prayer I often use for myself and when praying for others is that God will close the doors that are the path contrary to God’s will, blocking the way while also praying God will open the doors to the path that is God’s will. I use this prayer often with people who come wanting to decide about a career move, a decision about their marriage, or other areas of discernment. I have found in time that the prayer is answered in wonderful ways, but not usually quickly. It is a prayer that requires patience.

            Often the first part will come true, and some opportunity that seemed like a good alternative is suddenly and otherwise inexplicably closed off. The sure thing becomes impossible. And then there is an awkwardly long in between time with no options available. This is the time to “Trust in the slow work of God” to borrow another phrase from de Chardin. Remain faithful in that place of uncertainty trusting God to make a way where there is no way. Trust God to open up the path toward his will. It will happen, but almost never on your timetable.

            Eventually the wall you have been beating your head against will fall, but usually in such a way that you can see it as the answer to prayer that it is. In the meantime, you have to hang in there and trust God with as much patience as you can muster.

            (The Rev. Frank Logue is pastor of King of Peace Episcopal Church in Kingsland.)

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