Sausage vs. Chicken

Patience...it's something we try instilling in our kids from a very young age. We tell them to take turns with the toys, wait for the cookies to cool from the oven, stand in line for a turn on the slide...all examples of how to learn patience. But it's a hard lesson to grasp for such little minds. I like to think that I am a master at being patient. I mean I don't rip the remote out of my husbands hand when he's watching a major league football game just so I can watch my shows. Even though it is tempting. I don't cut in front of the elderly man pushing a walker at Wal-Mart as it takes him a good 20 minutes to write out his check. Wonder if he knows most banks offer debit cards now. And I certainly don't run the red light, even though I am in a hurry and could really SQUEAK through. So I've go it mastered right?

Then why is it the other night I choose to eat an entire sausage wrap, when I knew dinner was only an hour away. It was a good dinner too. Grilled chicken with squash and zucchini, potato salad and baked beans. Yet, somehow that sausage wrap sounded SO good at the time. I knew full well that there was something better coming--in only an hour. I knew I would not waste away if I waited just sixty minutes more. But, because I am still weak, because my patience isn't stronger I ate the sausage wrap. Now it was good, and it didn't kill me, but it did make me so full that I didn't enjoy the grilled chicken as much. And I have to admit that as soon as I stuffed the last bit of sausage wrap into my mouth I felt the Holy Spirit nudge me. I didn't feel shame, but I certainly saw the lesson God tries to teach me every day. And as I chewed that last little bit of sausage and tortilla, it became harder to swallow.

I look at the stories of impatience in the bible and see what it cost. Man the price for impatience is HIGH. The Israelites refused to be patient while Moses was up on the mountain and decided to create their own god to worship (Exodus 32:1), he came back down and man did all heck and tablets break loose (Exodus 32:19)! In Genesis 15 God tells Abram that He would give Abram's descendants the land. By Genesis 16 Abram's wife Sarai is so impatient that she takes things into her own hands and orders Abram to have offspring with her servant. And, if you're a believer, you know how that ended up. Haggar, the servant, was mistreated during her pregnancy by Sarai and ran away causing division. Division that to this day still causes strife. Then there's Job, even though he was losing everything he sat patiently. Waiting for the Lord to deliver him from it all. And boy did he ever. God restored Job's fortune, and then DOUBLED it (Job 42:10-11). Or what about Hannah? She wanted a child more than anything. In some ways she was like Sarai. But in many ways she wasn't. She cried and prayed. She prayed so hard in fact that the temple priest thought she was drunk. This heart ache went on for years. (1 Samuel 1:17). But she waited patiently on the Lord. And as a result she not only had one child , but SIX! 1 Samuel 2:26.

So I think there is a lesson here. When we wait on the Lord, when we exercise patience, what He gives is always MORE than we even had or asked for in the first place. It's still a lesson that I have not achieved, but I hope that I have learned enough to at least wait for the Grilled Chicken next time. What about you...what is God asking you to wait for? Trust Him with it--He's only making it better.

God can do anything, you know--far more than you could ever imagine, or guess, or request in your wildest dreams. Ephesians 3:20