Patience is apparently a virtue, but it is one that seems to be becoming extinct, at least in my life. We live in a nanosecond microwave culture, we want things and we want them yesterday darn it! I don’t know if you are like me, but I have allowed this to seep into my spiritual life – I see the changes I desire to make but I only want the results – not the hard work.
What’s just as concerning is how I react when the immediate change I desire is slow to arrive. I throw the towel in – if I can’t change that quickly then what’s the point? I get so discouraged, and this discouragement blinds me to any progress that I may have made.
I wonder what pleases Jesus more – empty acts or a willing heart? Could it be possible that He can do more with a willing heart than someone who just acts right? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that we coast through life with a willing heart but never actually changing, but rather that when the discouragement hits we remember that God looks at the heart, and that change is a journey not just a destination.
2 Corinthians 12: 7-10
‘To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. ” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.’
