Patience

Patience is difficult. Especially in life when you want to grow. When you want to move on to the next step. When you want to be free from the struggles that seem to keep your mouth just under the surface of the worries and stress waves that are crashing over you.

People say “Patience is a virtue” and expect that just from them telling you that it is going to solve your problem of not being patient. It may be a virtue but it feels like torture.

Patience is not easy. Especially in our culture when we can find the answer in an instant to how many fish a blue whale can fit in its mouth or how fast a pregnant cheetah can run. Culture adds to the problem. Technology is taking us so far away from understanding how to be patient that we just might end up dying from a heart attack if our iPhone 4S takes 3 seconds to load the webpage. Literally.

But what if patience was the most important ingredient to growth? I have a post-it note in my room that says “If you do Process well, you do leadership well”. It’s from a guy named Shav and he said it in a sermon I once heard. It stuck with me. Why? Because I want to be an incredible leader. I want to be someone who uses my influence to better other peoples lives and helps them better other peoples lives. But process takes patience!

Growing up on an apple orchard you understand the agricultural growth cycle. You till the soil. Plant the seed. Water the seed. Prune the branches. Then wait for the harvest. Then gather the harvest. It takes Timmmmme. And seasons. And sometimes when you are freezing in the middle of January (the worst month of the year) you would just like to bite into a ripe Gravenstein apple from your parents' apple orchard. But the trees are bare. And you have to wait until August. 

Patience. I think I’m growing in it. Then again I can hardly sit down to finish this whole blog. Part of me just wants to grab a bowl of Honeycomb cereal right now and call it a night. Also, if I’m honest I’ve probably started 10 books and haven’t had the “patience" to finish one. But who even reads books these days? Doesn’t everyone just get their news from Facebook. Seriously though I think I’m gonna leave and eat some Honeycomb. That just feels right.

May your love be strong (and your patience),

Joey