Impatience & Unbelief

I used to think I was a patient person. But, I'm not... I want to be, but so often I'm not. I subconsciously wish that the world revolved around me and that I could make everyone happy, including myself, all of the time. Wouldn't that be lovely?

But it doesn't and I can't. And I don't really want the universe to revolve around me, even though I sometimes wish that it did... Why can't everything go my way? Why can't I have what I want now? Why is everything so hard?

John Piper traces the sin of impatience back to unbelief and defines it as, "Murmuring against Providence when we are forced to walk the path of obedience in an unplanned place or an unplanned pace."

Even when I walk in the path of obedience, I often have murming in my heart towards God. The path of obedience is often a path of loneliness, or at least it has been for me in recent years. I complain about it being hard, about being tired, about being overwhelemd and alone. I indulge in pity parties that eventually (by God's grace) end in repentance about my sinful attitude(s).

The continuous call of the gospel is to repent and believe. To turn from unbelief, and to turn to God in faith, accepting the hope that is ours in Christ.

Believe what? Believe that God really does love me and He has both His glory and my happiness and my personal holiness in mind? Why is that so hard to believe?

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy, He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade -- kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. - 1 Peter 1:1-9

Paul said that three things will remain - faith, hope, and love (1 corinthians 13).

Faith. Through my waiting and through various trials, God is refining my faith in Him and in His grace so that it might be be proved genuine. Faith is some nice feeling about God. It is deep confidence in the power of God to save me through Jesus Christ.

Hope. I've been born again into a living hope, one that will never perish, spoil or fade. Hope is not optimism - it is reality. Jesus has already conquered death and sin at the cross, and He will return on the last day.

Love. You were loved in eternity past when God predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, on Calvary where Jesus died for you while you were God's enemy, and at the moment you first trusted Him for salvation. You who have trusted in Christ are loved today as His sons and daughters. And, we will be loved for all eternity, when we will share in the inheritance that our Father has prepared fo us.

And yet God waits for us. He works all things together for our good, and to the praise of His goodness! Why is it so hard for me to believe this? To believe that God really does love me so extravegently and perfectly? Is it possible to live in the full knowledge, or at least a fuller knowledge, of that love every day? To rest in that?

Oh for grace to comprehend His love, to know Him, to trust, and to wait patiently for Him!

Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the LORD is a God of justice; how blessed are all those who wait for Him. - Isaiah 30:18