Impatience

Sometime in the past few years I stumbled across I Corinthians 13 again and stared at that list of 16 (as I count them) traits that define LOVE. Love, the sign of the Christian. Love, the noblest emotion. "God is love," the Apostle John says.

Love is patient, love is kind. I never got past those first two, and in truth, I never got past "Love is patient." I am an impatient person. I'm the person who is seething inside because someone is making me wait, the person who can't stand to be put on hold on the telephone, the mother who often told her children, "Hurry up! We're late!" The person who is irritated at others who can't do things as fast as I can. And if I'm not hurrying others (impatiently), I'm hurrying myself! Berating myself for not maximizing every minute's use, for sitting around 5 minutes to enjoy the view, for not being the first one to arrive. 

Hurry = impatience. I can't think of an instance when this is not so. I suppose one could hurry for the sake of safety (step on the gas pedal to get across the flashing railroad tracks ... but wouldn't it be better simply to stop?) or for the sake of not making others wait (but shouldn't they patiently wait? Isn't that loving?). However, I'm almost never, ever late for anything. I'm not hurrying myself to be considerate; I'm hurrying myself because I'm impatient even with myself and hurrying has become a habit.

Impatience is a bad habit, but we excuse it in ourselves. We say, "She shouldn't make me wait! That's inconsiderate on her part!" We say, "The children need to learn how to be timely. It's a good character trait." We note rudeness in others when they inconvenience us, prompting our impatience, but we don't realize our impatience itself is rudeness. It's unloving. 

Why? Why should we have not only the appearance of patience, but also the inner peace of it? What's so wonderful about patience, and why is is the very first definition of love? Patience has to do with TIME. I ask myself, Why am I in a hurry? Do I feel I have limited time? If I do everything in my life a little faster, will I have more extra time at the end of life? This is silliness, of course, but we live this way! We act like we must squeeze all the productivity out of every minute because there are a limited number of minutes. 

And that's the lie. In my opinion, that is the very attitude that offends God, the attitude He doesn't want us to have, because it shows a deep misunderstanding of heaven -- of eternity. Do I have a finite number of hours and then Poof! I'm done? No -- I have eternity. Do I need to rush through activities as if I only have 70 or 80 years? No, I have eternity. Do I need to be impatient with others because they're robbing me of precious minutes I could be living as I choose? No, because I have eternity. I have eternity on a New Earth better than this one -- I have all of time, endless time, to do everything I ever want to do.

There is no hurry.

When I hurry, I say, "I don't have eternity," but God has already told me He has given me eternity. When I hurry, I deny this promise. When I'm impatient, I'm denying this promise both for myself and for others. I'm imposing my faithlessness on them, saying, "Why don't you hurry? We'd better both hurry because we don't have enough time in our lives to do it all." That's not love.

Patience is beginning eternity now. Love is reminding each other of eternity, of the sureness of the promise, of the sheer joy of knowing that we have forever to do all the things we simply don't have time for now ... and it's okay. It's okay not to have time for it all now. I'm not in a hurry. And you don't have to hurry for me. Let's relax through life and show that we believe we have all the time in the world.