LIVIN' ON A PRAYER

Galatians 5: 16 – 24
I so wish that I could live by the spirit all day, every day, but I haven't been able to do that yet.
We’ve all heard the prayer:
“Lord, make me more patient—and do it now!”
Why is it that patience evaporates when we are late for a critical engagement and are caught in a traffic jam? Or we rush to the “10 items or less” line at the store, only to find someone in front of us with 16 items!
Being forced to wait ratchets up the stress and shortens our fuse. When that happens, we not only fail to be patient but we undercut the Spirit’s work in our lives.
I know that I have to keep reminding myself that patience is not a virtue, it is a fruit of the spirit, and that my Dr. tells me that I need more fruit in my diet.
A few years ago I went out to the Stop and Shop in my town on a Sunday night (I wasn't saved at the time) to get a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of soda, and a loaf of bread. While walking towards the checkout, a man with a carriage full of groceries rushed in front of me. As he was unloading his “23”ITEMS! I began to fume and call him everything but friend, when it came to my mind; “I'm about to get into a fist fight over a pack of smokes and some soda and bread”, and I left my items on the counter and walked away all the while hearing the guy with the groceries, yell at my back about the marital status of my parents at my birth.
I had very little fruit in my diet that night.
As I said before, patience is not just a virtue, it’s a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22)—which means that demonstrations of impatience reveal the sour fruit of our fallen hearts rather than the sweetness of Jesus in our lives. Since God is a patient God, when we abandon patience we miss the opportunity to show our world the glory of God through our lives.
Bursts of impatience only demonstrate that we are more concerned with our own agendas than the needs and struggles of others. There may have been many reasons why that man rushed in front of me that night many years ago, but all I thought about was my own situation So let’s all take a deep breath and turn our focus away from ourselves by patiently loving others instead of ourselves in the midst of stress.
Patience gives us the privilege of sharing the refreshing fruit of God with others.

Be patient. Show your world what God is really like.