Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 559 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
Patience - The Tools in Gramps' Backpack


Thank you for joining us for our 5 days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. This is Day 559 of our trek, and we are hiking a series of trails called The Tools in Gramps’ Backpack.

Each Monday for a total of 20 weeks we are exploring a different tool that is needed to motivate and equip parents and grandparents to train their children and grandchildren to be successful on their trek of life. If you don’t have children or grandchildren of your own, use these tools to train others that you do influence. Today the 10th tool from Gramps’ Backpack is Patience.

We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. Life is hectic, and situations can really try our patience. In our instant everything world that we now live in, we lose patience so easily. If our fast food meal takes us five minutes to receive, if a website takes more than a few seconds to load, if we get behind someone driving that happens to be driving just the speed limit, we go crazy. This is why it is so important that we include the tool of patience in our backpack as one of our character traits. We first need to learn it ourselves, which is very difficult, and then through patience, we need to teach it to others. So the tool that we will explore today is… 


Patience
Patience is a tool that every thoughtful parent and grandparent needs themselves and to then skillfully teach it to others. The lack of patience is really a sign of foolishness and selfishness. The reason we become impatient is that we feel that our time and priorities are more important than others.

Patience is the embodiment of love. Love is an exercise in patience. One of the attributes of love is being patient. 1 Corinthians 13:4 reads, "Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud."

From time to time, even our most considerate friends and family members may do things that worry us, confuse us, or anger us. Why is this? Because they are human and not perfect, just like we are. It is exactly because they are human that we must be patient with their shortcomings, just as they need to be with ours. Ephesians 4:2 tells us, "Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love." 

St. Augustine said that Patience is the companion of wisdom. It is also listed as part of the fruit of the spirit contained in Galatians 5:22-23, "But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!"

The next time that you find yourself getting irritated and drumming your fingers while waiting for a loved one to do the right thing on a timely basis, take a deep breath and relax. Ask God for a little more patience. After all, we have very little control over most circumstances and events in our lives anyway. Impatience just makes the journey much more miserable. The world unfolds according to God’s timetable, not ours.  For that matter, our acquaintances, friends, and loved ones live and grow according to their time table too. Sometimes we must wait patiently, and that is a good thing because it helps us to grow our patience. After all, think about how patient God is with us, and our shortcomings. Colossians 3:12-14 reads, "Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others."