Patience and seeking to understand


How can I become more patient as a person? Why do I 'lose it' or get angry so quickly? How come I just can't bear to wait for anything?

For most of us, patience does not come naturally - but with God's help we can work at it. One of the keys to becoming more patient is seeking to understand - either yourself or somebody else better. For example, somebody drives into the back of your car. Now it may be that they were negligent, but it may also be that they have something going on in their life that is consuming them - what if that driver has just heard that his daughter has six weeks to live? How would that change our perspective on him, and how we might treat him? The reality is that nobody is leading a perfect life, without some level of illness, stress or hardship. Try taking a moment to think about somebody who you are at odds with. Now imagine that they have just six weeks left to live. Did your attitude to them change? The reality is that we all live with some kind of weakness or sickness, and these weaknesses effect our abilities to interact with others. One persons strengths will be very different to the next persons, and so we should never assume that just because something seems relatively easy for us, it is easy for them.

"How are you - keeping busy?"

In western culture "busyness" is seen as a virtue. If we're not busy in some way then we believe that we are of less value. Of course this is not true - our sense of value comes from understanding how much God (and our friends and family) loves us. Instead, we believe the lie that being constantly occupied makes us more important. If we are going to be good at patience, then we are going to need to know that it's OK to stop for once in a while.