The past several weeks I have been going through the fruits of the spirit with my junior church class. We began with love, joy and peace. Today we reached long suffering. Now, for five and six year olds long suffering is quite a big word. I shortened it down to patience for them. Over and over again we repeated the simple definition: "Being able to wait a LONG time without becoming angry.
I began to teach on Abraham and Sarah. God promised Abraham that he would make him the Father of the Many Nations. His generations would be more in number than the stars in the sky..What a promise! How excited Abraham and his wife must have been. No doubt they expected that the promise would come to past quite soon. However year year after and still no fulfilling of the promise. As I was relating the story I couldn't help but think of how they must have felt. Had God forgotten about them? Do you realize it was a full 25 years until God finally gave them Issac?
My eager students told me how much they also hated waiting! Whether it be waiting in the line at the water fountain, or for the bathroom, the line at the fair, or at a restaurant...it was concluded that none of the children liked to wait. None of us do! We want it now!
However, the older I get the more I realize that that isn't how God works. I often remind myself "patience" when dealing with a child in the school classroom. Or "patience Brooke" when I'm beginning to get annoyed with the person in front of me who has a coupon for every item in her cart. However, there are so much bigger things in my life that God is trying to teach me patience with. I want to to know His will for my life in every detail right NOW! I want to know where I will be 5 years from now. Will I still be in Ohio? Will I be back home? So many questions are constantly running through my mind. Questions that I want to know the answer to. But God tells me to wait.
Abraham and Sarah waited 25 years until the fulfilling of their promise. Never for a moment did God forget about them, He was working out every detail in His precise and perfect timing. Never for a moment has God forgotten about me! I want everything done now..but the best things in life often take a while. Fast food never taste the best...it's the steak that marinates for hours that truly is the most satisfying. God sees the big picture. He looks at my life as a whole. I simply see today. The future is a mystery; I know not what it holds. Honestly, the future scares me; I have s real fear of the unknown. However, through a simple lesson I was trying to teach to a room of 17 five to six years old kids, God spoke to me. How patient am I? Am I going to wait or am I going to jump the gun. God promises me to give me my every desire if I simply trust and wait on His perfect timing.
