Patience Paves the Path for Persistent Endurance
Patience paves the path to a life of peace and joy. You need a firm grasp on patience for those times when life gets so crazy it knocks you off balance. And you need to grow up that patience before the crazy shows up.
Scripture Focus
But let patience have her perfect work in you, so you will be perfect and complete, wanting nothing. – from James 1:4
When the traffic gets crazy AND you are already late, itβs hard to face being cut off and honked at with a cheerful or hopeful endurance. When your husband has gone AWOL, the baby is crawling through your feet while you attempt to fix dinner, and the other children are fighting in the bedroom, it is hard to have a constant endurance. When everything that can go wrong seems to have chosen this moment to do just that, it hard to remain where you are because you want to be anywhere else.
No wonder the art of patience allows for the perfection of my purpose. It takes an attitude of cheerful endurance, hopeful endurance, constant endurance, and a boldness to remain – no matter what. Iβm exhausted just thinking about it.
How Patience Paves the Path
Patience is so much more than just counting to ten. Itβs an active choice to stay. One I donβt always pursue, even if it is what will get me across the finish line – or at least keep me in the race.
Patience is a constant endurance of things, people, or the environment without the loss of focus on the purpose or the prize of the Provider. When I pray for patience, Iβm asking for so much more than just keeping my cool. Iβm asking for the promise. I guess itβs worth the work after all.
You need to be invested in growing up peace. Through peace, patience paves the path to the life you’re called to live.
How to Pave Your Patience Path
Paving yor patience path is as much about what not to put on your plate as it is knowing how to balance your place.
It’s Not You
Realize that it’s not all your responsibility. Much of the stress we encounter comes from things out of our control.
It’s Not Now
Even when it is your job or your responsibility, there are times when you can’t do anything about it. You sometimes have to wait until others available.
It’s Not Necessary
Sometimes we worry about what needs to be fixed when it doesn’t need to be fixed.
How Patience Has Her Perfect Work
The idea of being perfect and complete gets my attention. Knowing that I will be in a position where I will be wanting nothing pushes me over the edge. The trick seems to lie in learning how to get to that place where patience paves the path.