Transcript
Speaker: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control. Galatians 5, 22 through 23. Hey God, thank you for this time to come to you and be honest about how I'm struggling with patience in my life right now.
Speaker: The ability to keep calm and to wait patiently on you and to wait patiently and be patient with other people is such a challenge.
Speaker: Because I'm human and I get frustrated. I get frustrated when life isn't going the way I want. I get frustrated with other people when they aren't behaving or speaking or um saying things that I think are appropriate or helpful.
Speaker: And so part of stirring up patience in me, Lord, is this ability to come to you with my frustrations. I know that your spirit wants me to be patient with others and wants to help me be patient as I wait for all of the things that I want to be fixed and changed and healed in my life.
Speaker: But I can only do that because you are a safe place for me to bring my frustrations and my anger and all of the feelings that come with living in this broken world. So thank you that I can have these honest prayers with you, God.
Speaker: thank you that you do not shame me or you do not think less of me when I come to you and and I just cry out and am honest with the things that I'm i'm feeling because it's only because I have this safe place to share and to be real that I can then take a deep breath and turn and stir up patience within me and towards others. Lord, the fruits of the Spirit are
Speaker: are an idealized version of how you want me to live and I know that I will never keep up perfectly with them and so I just thank you that you're always here to forgive me when I'm not patient that you're here to um make right to all of the things that i do wrong and all of the things that i say in frustration and anger that i wish i shouldn't have said and all of the times that um i just allow frustration and
Speaker: and fear to build up in my own life. Lord, your word says this about being patient. It says that they who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint from Isaiah 40, 31. And that verse is so powerful because when I am frustrated,
Speaker: I am weary. And when I'm angry, I do feel as if life is falling apart. When that impatience wants to take hold of me, I cannot deal with it and manage it to get through it on my own.
Speaker: But you say that I can wait upon you and that when I do that, when I surrender, when I turn over all of these frustrations and fears and worries, that you will actually renew my strength and that it shall be as if I'm riding on an eagle in the wind, sailing carefree. And I have felt that at times, Lord, when you have when you have allowed me to truly surrender things to you. And I pray, Lord, that for all of the things that are weighing on me today, that this would be a new beginning in my day, that you would allow me to turn my frustrations, my cares, my worries on you, to cast them upon you. Even if I need to do so,
Speaker: um in in anger or in tears because you can handle it. Other people aren't meant to handle my impatience, but you can handle it. And when I come to you and I unleash it on you in honest prayer, in honest conversation with you, Lord, I am just claiming the truth that you will then renew my strength.
Speaker: to be patient with others and to be patient with my life and to be patient with myself when I am not living the way that I know that you have called me to live. Lord, thank you for loving me. Thank you for giving me your spirit to help me, to help me unload my worries and my fears and my frustrations on you so that I may be patient with myself and others. I love you, Jesus. Amen.
