Need Patience?

How many of us need patience? If you need patience, learn to rejoice in troubles. 

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

—Galatians 5:22-23

Battleship

I’ll let you in on a secret. I am not a patient person. This fact became visible this week as I played the “electronic” version of Battleship with my grandson. Interestingly, we had played the old fashion version without incident. You might remember this version. Each player gets a game unit with a target grid and ocean grid, five plastic ships, white pegs for misses, and red pegs for hits. The players take turns calling out letter and number coordinates for shot locations. If you call out a shot location that is occupied by a ship on your opponent’s ocean grid, your shot is a hit. 

On the electronic version, each player pushes the grid coordinates on a keypad and the computer or “screen” as the grands call it, announces whether it is a hit or miss with the appropriate sound effect. For example, the computer plays a “Kaboom” sound, followed by the coordinate, Charlie for “C” and the number 4. After each sound effect, my grandson was so excited he would yell out, “It’s a hit.”  I could understand his excitement, but his words would cover up the computer voice announcing the coordinates, and of course, he could not remember the coordinate he just targeted. Ugh!

I tried on multiple turns, to no avail, to get him to not yell out whether it was a hit or a miss, allowing me to hear the coordinates.  My voice was raising and I was becoming frustrated. Luckily, Lizzy stepped in and took over, just in the nick of time, allowing me to step back and calm down. 

Upon reflection, Lizzy was right, he is too young to be able to turn off his excitement so easily. Also, I think I should write the Milton Bradly Company with a suggestion. They should reprogram the game so that the coordinates are announced prior to the hit or miss sound effect. Yep, that would fix the problem.

Am I the Only One?

How many, like me, are tempted to flip to the last page of the book to discover the ending? Or, find yourself saying, “Come on get to the point already?”

Curious about this, I asked a non “flip to the last page person” to explain why they did not do it. The answer was more obvious than I expected. “Flipping to the last page ruins the enjoyment of discovering what happens.” Let that sink in a moment.

I think that is how we are with God. We are so focused on skipping to the answer to our prayers that we don’t fully appreciate or enjoy the process of experiencing our lives. 

Like with my grandson… I wanted him to understand how his actions were making it impossible for us to play the game with any accuracy. What I should have realized was that accuracy didn’t matter, but his excitement was special. He will not always get so excited about something as simple as a “hit” or a “miss.”

Have you ever wanted an answer from God so badly that you became so frustrated that you later regretted that you had missed the blessings along the way?  I have.

Don’t Miss the Blessing

Let us not miss the blessings the Lord has for us because we are focusing on the minor troubles of this life. Let us do like the Apostle Paul:

“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:3-4).

Can we really rejoice in sufferings or troubles and wait patiently?  I have to let you know that I have a difficult time doing so.  But, I think the message here is that we should not be surprised when we run into troubles. And, we can know that troubles will produce something good for us, which will make us stronger and help us trust God more. 

The bottom line is this: troubles grow our faith. Now, that is something for which we can rejoice. So, if you need patience, like me, learn to rejoice in troubles. 

Copyright © 2023 Chuck Locklear

See my 2020 New Year’s post: Godvidence.