~Delayed Gratification~

Crowders Mountain…

This past Saturday some of the women from my church and I took a trip and climbed Crowders Mountain. This was my first time climbing any kind of mountain recreationally, so I was excited. Killer smoothie for breakfast, ice-cold water, camera slung, and chilled sliced plums awaiting my descent; I was ready.

all smiles and ready to go…

I already knew I was going to blog about this, even had a name ready; “View from the Top”.

Well on the way up, we missed the turn for our intended route and ended up taking a much longer and harder route to the top of the mountain (a whole other life lesson here, but I shall not digress). It started out fine, but then there were hills after hills and no designated resting place. My breathing was labored and legs felt taxed. But ALL of that evaporated the instant I made it to the top and saw the view.

For some reason, of the whole trip, that instant feeling was heightened and highlighted. I was just amazed to myself that I couldn’t even drum up in my mind how tired my legs felt just moments earlier. I thought of that feeling the whole way down and on the ride home; just couldn’t shake it. The next morning, as I mulled it over, God said He didn’t want me to talk about the view from the top, but about Delayed Gratification. So here goes…

 

Patience…

wait on the Lord…

I am in a season where God is working on my patience; or lack thereof 🙂 You know the kind where no one ever seems to be moving fast enough? Yep; the kids, the husband, the car in front of you, the cashier, the customer in front of you with 15 coupons and five price checks….

Well I was driving home yesterday trying to beat Friday afternoon rush ‘hour’ traffic and God said “Look at how calm you are”. And I realized that I was actually enjoying my commute home. I had scheduled to meet someone and I had given myself as much time as I needed. I realized three things about what we consider to be impatience.

Lack of Planning – impatient people mis-manage the control of their time and then want to control how other people move. We don’t leave the house on time and therefore have no buffer for the what ifs along the way. We schedule appointments and commit to events back to back barely giving ourselves time to move from one thing to another. So God forbid if someone is asking too many questions or someone stops you because they are in need…we say “Lord, I don’t have time for this”.

Bad listening skills – some of us cut people off when they are speaking or even if we don’t, we can’t wait for them to shut up so we can speak. You see, we want to have our say. Perhaps we feel that what we have to say is more important? If we strive to catch ourselves when we do this we’ll see our patience in conversations improve. Make a note while they are speaking about what you want to say so you don’t forget it, and then give them your undivided attention.

Trusting God (or not) – some of us are downright impatient because we don’t have all of our trust in God. We are even impatient with Him! If He were to give us EVERYTHING that He has for us we would surely buckle under the enormity of it. Success is on the way for some of us, but God knows until He works on our pride, humility and our love for Him, we wouldn’t know how to handle it.

God is a God of impeccable timing and rhythm and He is precisely accurate in ALL that He does. Don’t let anything come out of you that is premature!

Lastly, as brothers and sisters we can be impatient with each other. Especially when people aren’t turning their lives around as fast as we think that they should. Who was patient with you? Someone tarried with you until you saw the light. Your process might have been shorter than someone else, but stay encouraging and listening and being there; God will tell you when you’re done.

Galatians 5:22-23 – But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. There is no law against such things. (we can never have too much of these) 🙂

Be Blessed

JC