Gone with the time

We are in the NBA and it is 1980. The Golden State Warriors want to have a winning team NOW and, for that reason, they trade a relatively young player, Robert Parish, to the Boston Celtics, together with the three elected for the Draft. In exchange, they receive the best university player, the number one. This number one is Joe Barry Carroll ... and with number three the Celtics choose one Kevin McHale. Golden State was impatient: Carroll was a complete failure in comparison with those two basketball geniuses, Parish and McHale.

It's interesting that one of the characteristics most lacking in today's society is patience. We live in a world that moves full speed, where it is possible to see the sunrise more than a dozen times in one day, thanks to the rapid means of transportation to which we have access... but we don't have patience. A few years ago, if someone had to go about 30 miles and missed the stage-coach, he didn't worry; he could always get it next month.

Yet these days we get angry if someone queue-jumps at the supermarket... because we don't have patience. We want everything RIGHT NOW!

God always reminds us of the importance of knowing how to wait. Often a good business deal, a friendship or a good relationship is ruined by lack of patience. At other times, not knowing how to wait lead us to actions that bother our conscience for years to come. The words 'patience' and 'waiting' are ones we don't even like to hear, yet they are of the utmost importance.

God tells us in his word that the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, etc. So it follows that the only way to be patient is to be controlled by the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is God himself living in us and teaching us to be patient. God will often use different circumstances around us to teach us how to wait. We all know that difficult situations produce patience, that tribulations produce patience, and that frustration produces patience.

If we are experiencing these types of situations at this moment in our lives, at least we know that something good is going to come of it... we will have more patience.

Remember, patience does not appear when we need it if we have not learned to live it. Only those who are full of the Spirit of God will have learned to wait for the right moment, to have patience and not become frustrated. Be patient. Endure till the end. Victory always comes to those who know how to wait.