Patience
/Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. - James 5:7
I was waiting in the grocery line this week, which was long, and looking at my watch. I had a meeting coming up. Would I make it? Impatience rose up inside me as I went up on my tiptoes to see if any of the other lines looked like better prospects. They did not. So I decided to tap into the serenity prayer, which often helps me, leaning into the assurance that I can trust God with my life and have serenity about the things I cannot change.
I need to remind myself daily that there are many things I cannot change. I cannot change other people. I cannot change societal trends. I cannot change the economy, or politics or the seemingly endless, and maddeningly repetitive, injustices of this world. Of course, I can do my part and make my best choices. It may take some courage, but I can do my best to stay awake for God’s call to me and say yes and follow. But I am not able to change or fix so many things - even, it seems, within myself at times.
Be patient, James tells us. It’s a challenging advent message in this season of waiting. It’s a bitter pill to swallow to accept that sometimes the only thing we can do is wait things out. Wait for an opening. Wait for a response. Wait for something better to present itself. Wait for a critical mass to gather. Wait for something outdated to fade so something new can be born. A lot of life is waiting. And it sometimes seems that the ‘coming of the Lord,’ the arrival of the one who does have the power to change things, is taking it’s own sweet time.
So many scriptural passages are about waiting - mostly waiting on the Lord or abiding with the way life is. In our own short lifespans and with our own meager abilities, we are told we need to lean into something much bigger than we are, trusting into that bigger reality to address the overwhelming things that are much bigger than we are. It takes serenity to let go of our own desire to fix. It takes courage to fix we actually can do something about. Sometimes it’s hard to discern which is which.
So in this dark season, may God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and new Advent wisdom to know the difference.
