That's me. Perfectly impatient...trying to become imperfectly patient.
I know that sounds a bit confusing, so hear me out: I am a very impatient person. It's one thing I'm really good at. I'm perfectly impatient.
I can drive myself crazy waiting to see how things will turn out. (I can also drive those around me crazy - just ask my husband!) When I get a new book, I have to read the last page first. I usually have about 7 different tabs open on my internet browser, because I can't just look at one thing at a time. I get so worked up when a TV show leaves me hanging. And an open ended movie - that's the worst! I don't like surprises...even good ones! And I've been known to give a present to someone early or tell them what it is because I just can't handle keeping it a secret!
We're still a few days away from closing on our old house and I'm going crazy trying to figure out where we'll end up next. What our house will look like, where it'll be, what color paint we'll use for which room, blah blah blah. I'm so impatient that I'm taking the good and valuable information I'm learning from Financial Peace University (which is suggesting we wait a while before jumping into buying another house while we get some things in order first) and trying to justify doing things out of order.
It's ridiculous how much time I spend (aka waste) impatiently waiting for something. I let myself get so ahead of myself and so consumed by what if's, I wonder's, and maybe's that I often miss out on what's right in front of my face.
I don't want to miss out anymore. I don't want to live my life in a constant state of anxiety because I can't relax and just see what happens. It seems easy enough, but I know making the change will be hard. It's going to require a lot of praying, reading God's Word, self-control, and ironically, patience.
When I looked to the Bible to find some scripture on patience, I found that it's mainly spoken of in times of suffering and hardship situations. It made me realize how unimportant most of the things I get worked up about are. But while I may feel anxious over trivial things, my struggle with impatience is real and something I need to get a hold on.
The one verse that really seems to fit here is Galatians 5:22-23: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control..." I want to be fruitful, and patience is a key part of that.
But I'm not expecting that someday I'll reach a point where I'll never feel anxious about anything again. Let's be real. I'm never going to be perfectly patient. My impatient tendencies are a part of my God-given personality and instead of trying to get rid of them tall together, hopefully I can channel them into something positive (may God reveal what that is!). Until then I'm ready to work hard to become imperfectly patient.
God's grace lets us be imperfect. God knows we can't be perfect, but He expects us to do our best and lean on Him all the while.
And being imperfectly patient is better than having no patience at all. So I'll take it one day and one situation at a time, and someday I'll be imperfectly patient rather than perfectly impatient. (But I'll probably always read the last page of a book first!)
It's ridiculous how much time I spend (aka waste) impatiently waiting for something. I let myself get so ahead of myself and so consumed by what if's, I wonder's, and maybe's that I often miss out on what's right in front of my face.
I don't want to miss out anymore. I don't want to live my life in a constant state of anxiety because I can't relax and just see what happens. It seems easy enough, but I know making the change will be hard. It's going to require a lot of praying, reading God's Word, self-control, and ironically, patience.
When I looked to the Bible to find some scripture on patience, I found that it's mainly spoken of in times of suffering and hardship situations. It made me realize how unimportant most of the things I get worked up about are. But while I may feel anxious over trivial things, my struggle with impatience is real and something I need to get a hold on.
The one verse that really seems to fit here is Galatians 5:22-23: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control..." I want to be fruitful, and patience is a key part of that.
But I'm not expecting that someday I'll reach a point where I'll never feel anxious about anything again. Let's be real. I'm never going to be perfectly patient. My impatient tendencies are a part of my God-given personality and instead of trying to get rid of them tall together, hopefully I can channel them into something positive (may God reveal what that is!). Until then I'm ready to work hard to become imperfectly patient.
God's grace lets us be imperfect. God knows we can't be perfect, but He expects us to do our best and lean on Him all the while.
And being imperfectly patient is better than having no patience at all. So I'll take it one day and one situation at a time, and someday I'll be imperfectly patient rather than perfectly impatient. (But I'll probably always read the last page of a book first!)
You sound like me. I waste so much time, effort, and energy on thinking about things that may never even happen! ...and the majority of the time it doesn't. Seems like a foolish way to waste the precious lives that we have, but somehow it's difficult to break that habit.
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