I'm-patient

Patience seems to be a virtue that always elude me. I like to be accurate, right, effective, etc (revealing the choleric side of me). But more than all those, I like to be fast! My greatest challenge in doing well in Maths when I was younger was simply due to the fact that I was too impatient to check through my work. It's not as funny as it sounds since I've lost many precious marks for making careless mistakes! I have learned through the years how costly my impatience could be.

It takes discipline to stop myself from getting caught up in the fast-moving pace of life around me, without me speeding things up even more. My impatient nature is also reflected in my impatience with myself. I hate making mistakes (streaks of perfectionism) and can be very hard on myself when I do or when I feel I am not learning as fast I would like to. I look around me and tend to compare myself with the experts and those who've been around for much longer than I - then subtly tell myself, if they can do it, I can do it too and better, NOW!?!

It's this drivenness that I need to watch out for because I know life and nature has its own course of time. It's unreasonable to stand in front of a child and get impatient with him because he isn't growing up fast enough - by my standard and for my pace! I am learning that I need to give people room and space to grow, recognising that God is at work (usually not at my desired pace). There are times when I think they can do better but that doesn't give me a right to tell them off when they're not living up to their potential, or worse still, my expectations. Impatience and sarcasm is a lethal combination, and under absolutely no condition am I ever justified to use sarcasm to tear my brother down. God is at work and if He is not complaining, who am I to think I know any better? People do not intentionally fall short of their full potential and I must not assume otherwise. Grace is giving them the benefit of the doubt that they tried the best they can for that occasion. One thing I know I should do but don't do often enough, is to acknowledge and appreciate others for their efforts. Instead I am ever so quick to point out how far they missed the mark, as if they don't already know! I've seen how encouragement can help my friends gain confidence and believe in their own potential, that they would be willing to try again even after a 'fall'. However I have to be careful not to use encouragement as a subtle form of manipulation or pressure to make others perform! It's a fine line sometimes but I think people can sense when we genuinely believe in them and their full potential, yet accept them as they are!

Grace is really love in action. I'm constantly looking out to see what grace would look like under different circumstances.