patience with God

One of the areas that God has been working on in my life...is patience.

Sometimes that is reflected when I'm out on the road. Do you ever stuggle with patience, when you get behind a slow driver?

At times, I think it helps my prayer life. I start having a prayer meeting right there in my car. “Jesus will you please bless that person in the car in front of me! Especially bless their right foot. Give it extra weight. Give them wisdom to know that they better speed up or get out of the way, in Jesus name!”

I've learned a lot from watching NASCAR (which is probably not the best role model). Watching NASCAR, I learned that it is not called tailgating…it's drafting!

At the grocery store, I hate when you end up in the slowest line. There’s an exact science to picking the right check-out lane at WalMart. I do that thing where you walk by all the registers and calculate the ratio
 between the number of people in line
 proportionate to how many items each person has
 divided by the apparent speed of the cashier in each line
To determine which one will get me out of the store the fastest.

There are some great restaurants here in Tuscaloosa, but you won’t find me waiting. Outback Steakhouse? Great place. I love it! But if it means waiting 2 hours to get a seat...I'll see you at McDonald's.

So...WHAT'S THE POINT?

Impatience doesn't work in our relationship with God. Isaiah 40:31 says, "Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint." My problem is that I want to run and do all this stuff without first waiting upon the Lord.

This week our entire church has committed to a morning (or evening) quiet time with Psalm 139. Inspired by that challenge on Sunday, someone sent me this email that puts it all in perpective:

I have a close friend who is a pastor. A few years ago, he began to experience burnout. He was trying to do too much and satisfy too many people. He even considered, with tears, the idea of leaving the ministry. One of his favorite writers is Brennan Manning. One day he was so depressed that he decided to try to call Manning, though he had never met him. To his surprise, Manning's name was in the New Orleans directory. My friend called the number and Manning answered the phone. Manning was very gracious and listened to my friend pour his heart out. Then Manning said, "Greg, you probably need to get out of the ministry." There was then silence on the line. Those words stunned Greg. He did not know what to say. Then Manning added..."or you can learn to waste time with Jesus everyday...not doing anything constructive but relaxing with Him. Those are your only two choices."