Patience: The Greatest Virtue of All?

I have never been patient. When I was a young girl, my parents used to have to physically restrain me from opening my Christmas presents before my brothers woke up, and I would regularly throw fits when I had to wait my turn to play Nintendo Super Mario Bros.

In other words, I was a brat. (My brothers have the scars on their arms to prove it.)

While I am much more mature today (I only throw fits in my head when I have to wait for something), I still haven't quite mastered the patience virtue that my mother, an elementary school teacher, commanders with such ease. I get frustrated when I'm stuck on the 10 FWY going 5 mph, I get cranky when I have to wait too long for a table at a restaurant, and I get irritated when a movie has too many previews at the theatre. Like many in my general age bracket (and coincidentally, most age brackets), I crave instant gratification -- I want what I want when I want it.

The problem with the whole "instant gratification" kind of mindset is that life doesn't work that way. More specifically, God doesn't work that way.

For the past twenty or so months, I've been struggling with what some might call a quarter-life crisis. I'm not sure if what I am experiencing can fall neatly under that label, but I do know that I feel scared about what I'm doing with my life. I worry everyday that I am not using the gifts and talents God has given me in the right way -- professionally, socially and spiritually. While I know that Earthly pursuits - ie. fame, money and a fancy career with fancy business cards -- aren't the point, I can't help but think there is more out there for me than my current 9 to 5 job. And not just because I really hate all the filing.

But even beyond the whole career woes and questions of "what am I doing with my life?", I feel a general sense of malaise that things haven't turned out the way I planned when I graduated college nearly four years ago. I didn't expect that life would be this hard. That I wouldn't be promoted into greatness at my first job, that I would lose friends as quickly as I made them, that my roommate would move out, that I wouldn't immediately find the love of my life (or even someone to love for a minute). At times, the whole lot of it makes me wonder if God has forgotten about me. And then I go to my Sunday church service, and Pastor Mark Brewer says something that seems so absurdly relevant that I know He hasn't. That I just have to practice a little of my least favorite virtue, patience.

This past Sunday, Pastor Brewer preached the gospel of Habakkuk, a prophet who complained to God, "How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?" (Habakkuk 1:2) when the leaders of Judah were oppressing the poor in his nation. As I listened to his lament, it didn't escape me that I have been thinking, though not saying, those same words about my own life. In the end, God answers Habakkuk, telling him that the solution he seeks is coming, but not until the right time, and in turn, Habakkuk praises the Lord, and prays, "I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us... I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior." (3:16-18)

Sitting in my pew on Sunday, I was overwhelmed by the way the sermon seemed to be speaking directly to my current situation. It was, in one of God's mysterious ways, the answer to my prayers for help and direction. God hasn't abandoned me, He hasn't forgotten me, but He is working on a different time schedule than me. I need to be patient, to trust, and to have a little faith that when the time is right I will find my way -- through His way.