PATIENCE! PATIENCE!

I had serious surgery on my lumbar spine a month ago, and so far everything is going as promised. Thank the Lord. 

Of course, I've had to learn to be patient with the slow pace of the recovery. Everyone keeps reminding me to take it slow and not try to rush things. I'm supposed to walk as much as I can to help me recover, but I found at first that I could only walk a few steps before my back muscles started to complain. Which brings me to a second point: The chilly weather. 

I've found it really hard to make myself step outdoors to walk when almost every day the temperature is in the forties. I keep wishing for some spring-like weather that would entice me outside to walk. So, another lesson: I have to learn to be patient with the slow arrival of spring weather. 

This patient (or not-so-patient) waiting over the past few weeks has made me reflect on how the Lord fits into this. There's a wise saying in some African American churches, 

"God may not come when you want him to, 

but he's always on time."

When I thought about this saying early this morning, I naturally thought about how I have to be patient with God's way of doing things, and with the seemingly slow pace of the Lord's answering my prayers. But then I suddenly realized how different my situation must look from God's point of view: For all these years God has had to be patient with me! The Lord has been putting up with my foot-dragging, my timidity, my procrastination. The list could go on and on: my stubbornness, my lack of trust... I'll stop here before I get depressed looking at the list.

Okay, so I'm impatient with the slow pace of my recovery from surgery, with the the seeming delay of the coming of spring and with God's sometimes slow response to my prayers. But the amount of patience this requires of me is nothing compared to the infinite patience Jesus has always shown toward me. How many times a day do I try his patience almost to the breaking point? Yet he is always faithful, just like the Lord in the book of Exodus, who time after time keeps forgiving the infidelity of the Israelites in the wilderness.    

Maybe the most important lesson I've learned in the past month is not about how to be patient, but rather how patient the Lord is and has always been with me!

Have a Blessed Easter Season!