Impatience is an ugly, greedy thing with which I often struggle. Recently God showed me how my impatience towards His plan was only complicating things further.
"But God, I've been waiting. How much longer will I be in this place?" I whined. I heard nothing. God didn't reply.
Growing up across the street from my great, great aunt I used to watch- and sometimes help- her prune her rose bushes every Tuesday. I don't know why she chose Tuesdays but that's the day she pruned them. Once I asked her why and she told me this story:
"My mother used to have rose bushes when I was a girl- beautiful strong bushes- and all the neighbors would come and buy them for special ocassions. One year, I asked her for a bush for my birthday and she gave me one she had grafted herself.
I planted it in the ground and watered it faithfully. After a while it began to bloom these pretty flowers but as the flowers grew the stalks would break. I asked mama why. She told me it was because they weren't strong enough to hold the flowers. Then she took me to her bushes and her stalks were two or three times the size of mine and her flowers were huge and bright- mine were pale and sickly looking- even if I thought they were beautiful. She clipped my bush back and over the next season she showed me how to prune my rose bush. When the stalks became thick and strong we put more fertilizer around the bush and then let the rose buds appear. Unlike last time, this time my flowers were bright and the stalks didn't break against their weight.
"See she said, roses just require some pruning and patience."
As long as she was able, my great great aunt always had the most beautiful rose bushes in the neighborhood. I wish I could be even half as patient with my life as she was with her rose bushes.
When I am inpatient, I am not trusting God to work out things in His timing. I am not trusting that His timing is even better than my own. And at the cost of progress, I am pushing to change things on my own which only further complicates the situation or circumstance. By being patient and allowing God to prune things in my life and my heart, I ensure that when it the buds appear that the stalk will be fortified enough to hold the fully grown flowers. Doing it any other way is greedy and creates cracks in the foundation which will crumble under the weight of future trials.
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