IMPATIENCE

 I was praying this morning for patience. And God knows we all need that! Monday through Friday my wife and I travel 132 miles daily. We witness aggressive drivers taking over the roads and the funny part is that the ones who pass us up end up beside us or we pass them up due to traffic.

We are all taught to be aggressive in life, which can be good for many. I have always said that if you want to move up in your occupation, you must learn every part of the skills in your profession, from the cleaning department to the management. I believe every job in life is a simple step and you must take it as such. (a step towards leadership). But focus is a common failure. And the enemy of focus is impatience.

The funny thing is that I was praying on this and the Lord led me to scripture of when the Israelites were led by Moses to the promised land but impatience caused them to make irrational decisions.

Remember when the Israelites were impatient with Moses? The kicker is that although God chose the Israelites to be a blessing to other nations, they had much to work on as individuals. One of those things was patience. In one particular story, their impatience caused them to do something so bad in the sight of God that it made God want to destroy them. Let’s take a look at the story of the “Golden Calf”.

Most of you may already be familiar with this story. It’s found in Exodus 32. Moses was the leader of the Israelites at the time. And I want to make one thing clear. We can pray for others, seeking direction, healing, a prophetic word for them, but they must be ready to receive from the Lord.

Moses was on mount Sinai speaking with God. In the eyes of the Israelites, Moses was taking too long to come down from the mountain and so they told Moses’ assistant Aaron:

“Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” - Exodus 32:1

Sensing their impatience and of course being outnumbered, Aaron gave in to their request and used their gold earrings to make them an idol in the form of a golden calf.

That made God angry and He was prepared to destroy them. Thankfully for them, Moses convinced God to relent from his anger, but in the end, they were still punished. About 3,000 of them died because of actions stemming from impatience (Genesis 32:28).

The lesson that stands out in the story of the golden calf is that our impatience could cause us to lower our standard and make rational decisions. In the case of the Israelites, Moses’ delay led them to find an idol to worship instead.

We may find ourselves doing similar things because we are impatient. We may go back to our old way of living when we don’t experience the benefits of being a citizen of God’s kingdom soon enough.

Once I was working at a local church and I started to feel like I was taken advantage of. That caused me to consider a former business opportunity that I was very familiar with. The former business was filled with wonderful people and recognition, but because I was impatient, I dropped the ball and fell out of line with where God wanted me to do. Then I was encouraged by people to begin my own ministry which I did, but still I was still out of Gods order. And boy did I pay the price. But thankfully I came to my senses, asked the Lord for forgiveness and then God spoke to me about being still.

So, beware of letting impatience cause you to settle for less. Philippians 4:6-7; “Do not be anxious or worried about anything, but in everything [every circumstance and situation] by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, continue to make your [specific] requests known to God. 7 And the peace of God [that peace which reassures the heart, that peace] which transcends all understanding, [that peace which] stands guard over your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus [is yours].”

Word!