Easy, Killer, Slow down...

What is it about Patience that throws me completely off track? Here I am, moving at a good pace, seeing life travel the way it should, stepping on the gas when it isn't, and then Patience rears her sweet little head, and forgets to add more rails to the line of my destination. I have been derailed for a while (since early February, actually), and it has been for a specific purpose. To learn to love Patience. We've had a rather progressive relationship. I first acknowledged her, then I kicked her, tried to stifle her, moved on to ignore her, got placed right back next to her, and now I'm learning to converse with her. And you know what? She's not half bad. Sometimes it feels easy to blame this desire for movement, movement, movement on our society. I mean, we all know we have instant rice, store bought clothes, speed limits not meant to actually be heeded, and the divine rush of information via wireless internet. And, although this is the embryonic fluid I was birthed in, it is not entirely to blame. The impatience is in ME. I recognize it now that I live in community. who's calling? what's happening? where's the party? when can they come over? Deep are the circles under my eyes, wide are the yawns escaping my lips, and yet still I scurry and scramble to know what is new, what has changed. There is a contrast to this mindset which is found in this beautiful lyric written by my pastor: "Then my soul- in every strait- to Thy Father, come and wait...", and I just picture me running, panicked or anxious, trying to get an answer out of Jesus, and He just wants me to stay and wait. "Be STILL, and know that I am God..." It is only when I surrender my plans, my timeline, my schedule, ideas and goals, that I find the peace I believed would come in accomplishing all those things in the first place. And so, Patience and I have been rooming together. There are still times when I lock her in the room (such as today), but for the most part, she's becoming a rather calming, and a surprisingly settling, friend. "But let Patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."