DISCLAIMER: Joy is not always an automatic byproduct of patience. Patience is hard. Living in a culture where everything is on demand, we often lose sight of the value of patience. Often the reason why we have to go through periods of waiting is because God is molding us into the person He desires us to be. Molding is not always a joyful process but God is working today and we are so blessed to be a part of it.

Let me take a moment and share from personal experience. My experience with active patience not only taught me the value in the wait but has changed the vision of my goal. While there are many areas which I need to develop patience, one area I have particularly struggled with is my desire for a relationship. I have decided to share this example with the understanding that I am not in this alone. I would venture to guess that many of the women reading this post are either in the same boat or have walked through this struggle earlier on in their life.

Prior to starting this blog, my heart longed to give. A woman’s heart is created to care for others and we are uniquely designed to love. As I looked around, I was surrounded by women who had been blessed with that unique opportunity to share that love with their husbands and families. It was no longer a battle with God as to when He would give me that same opportunity…I was now faced with the most daunting and freeing truth: God had given me that desire to be utilized in the present.

I had understood that God had given me this desire and that it was very good. What I could not understand was why I had such an intense desire to care and love when He would not give me a family to pour that love into.

I wrestled with God and with these thoughts. I desired to have patience and to find that joy. Months later I did find that joy but it was not without pain and doubt. I am excited to the opportunity to share what God has taught me and how this process has led me to start this blog.

——

It may not seem like rocket science, but it was to me. God was calling me to search outside of my narrow focus to the bigger picture of His creation. He has created me to care and has designed me to love…and that is what I am going to do. He has shown me that no matter what my circumstance that this is exactly what I am called to do. While I still eagerly look forward to the day when God may bless me with a family of my own, He has opened my eyes to the needs around me.

He has given me a source of joy in my patience. To me, I still often see it as patience looking forward, but for God, it is the present…He is calling me to live every moment. God is using the present to prepare us for the future and He is using today to fulfill His work on earth. We are so blessed to be a part of God’s work today, I pray that would we not get too wrapped up in the future.

God is constantly satisfying that desire as I fulfill His plan for my life today. God had placed that desire in me, I just did not recognize what He had planned for it. Obviously, there are many ups and downs, but I have started to understand the meaning of active patience.

Psalm 37:4

“Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

God will give you the desires of your heart. He knows your heart and what it really is desiring. While someday that may be in God’s plan for me, my desire was meant for God’s work today. What is God calling you to today? Stop dwelling on the future. Take comfort in the promise that God will provide for tomorrow and respond in obedience with your actions today.

Do Not Worry: Matthew 6:25-34

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (emphasis added)