Patience: I haven’t always felt that it has been one of my strong points. I’ve wrestled to find it, exercise it, and not berate myself when I’m in the throes of expressing its opposite. Impatience often comes in the form of either subtle or overt anxiousness: the feeling of not being where I need to be either literally or figuratively, coupled with a willfulness to get there.
One day as I pondered the need for more patience, I took some moments to really think about it: Why was I in such a hurry? What was I afraid of? That’s when this idea struck me, an entirely new and much more accessible definition of the word: Patience is the exercise of present grace. Since then, my ongoing battle has taken a sweeter turn, as I remember that I need to pause, reflect, and draw on the presence of God’s current grace.
When I came across this quote from American intellectual writer and social critic Paul Goodman, it resonated with me deeply: “Patience is drawing on underlying forces; it is powerfully positive, though to a natural view it looks like just sitting it out. How would I persist against positive eroding forces if I were not drawing on invisible forces? And patience has a positive tonic effect on others; because of the presence of the patient person, they revive and go on, as if he were the gyroscope of the ship providing a stable ground. But the patient person himself does not enjoy it.”
