Be patient
I waited patiently for the Lord;
He inclined to me and heard my cry. Psalm 40:1
Read James 5:7—11
I admit — I can name them — there are things in my life I would never want to change, yet I can’t keep them. Youth would be one thing. I can’t stop getting older. Age doesn’t always suit me. And there are other things I’d just love to change if I could change them. But I can’t. I haven’t been able to. Either way it adds up to a need for patience. And as a person who is in Christ, asking for patience must mean asking for faithfulness. The idea of it is that I have a need to find the way, to find a contentment when I am not just now where I would rather be. Not right now who I’d like to be. Or how I’d like my life to be. I don’t arrive at that contentment through some self-help philosophy. Rather, I remember who I am, this person in Christ. I press in upon Christ. I find in him where I’d like to be, who I’d like to be and how I’d like to be. He is the one in whom I am hid, and my impatience to be somewhere else and someone else is met in him.
Because you are Lord of the times and the seasons of life, Lord Jesus Christ, when I know you truly you must enlarge my life. In you all things are mine. You must grant me, even now, even where I am placed, a larger space to live than my own poor time and space. You give me your love for the Father. You give me your love for the neighbour. You give me a future and a hope and the love of the Spirit. When I am in you I never have to stay put in a confined space.