Posted in Gods Work

     I have been working on long suffering for many months.  I have prayed, begged, and down right fallen at His feet to help me develop this process.  However, I just wasn't getting it. 

      Recently, I called our Pastor for advice about dealing with certain teen issues.  He talked to me about patience and long suffering being 2 different things. 

      We started a Bible Study that deals with long suffering, and I think God is finally starting to grow me up in this area.  Long Suffering is proactive and has 3 parts, Patience is simply inactively waiting. 

     When one uses the process of long suffering correctly, there are 3 main components:

•       Stress.  I knew I lead a stressful life, but I had no idea just how much stress I was really carrying around or how it affected me when not using God's principals properly.
•       Wait.  This encomasses the time of praying for help and laying the problem at God's feet, all the while observing and gathering facts.
•       Look for a solution (using kindness).  When dones properly, God will show the answer clearly.  When the first 2 are sjippe, we tend to force the solution and usually end up kicking ourselves.  (I plead the 5th on this.)

     God is long suffering with us on a scale that we will never be able to understand.  Actually, I can't get a handle on how he handles the stress of me as a His child, let alone any other stress or the process of long suffering.  God gave us this process to hone our skills, allow us the opportunity to be more like Him, and to obviously strenghten our relationship.  How cool is that?

     You have heard the phrase "waiting is the hardest part."  This is ever so true.  Why do we as humans succumb to impatience so easily and try to force things when we have God to work us through?  How many times h ave you been focused on something (reading, cooking, a lesson with a child, reading food labels, etc) and your children are tugging, screaming, or simply finding the most inappropriate way to get your attention, only to react unjustly to them, because of your focus.  You have no idea of the situation outside of your focus; your stress level and blodd begins to rise; then SNAP a  reaction without waiting and gathering all the facts.  Often times, I get the information afterwards and then have my tail between my legs or feel guilty for having reacting before getting the facts and looking for the appropriate solution. 

     We must all work on allowing God to allow us to grow closer to Him.  It is the simple allowing Him time to work through us, that is the crucial piece to this process.  Dear God, work through me today.  Come in and give me calmness and the ability to wait and seek all the facts before reacting in every situation.  Thank you for your faithfulness!