"Patience means staying with something until the end. It means delaying immediate gratification for future blessings. It means reining in anger and holding back the unkind word. It means resisting evil, even when it appears to be making others rich.
Patience means accepting that which cannot be changed and facing it with courage, grace, and faith. It means being “willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon [us], even as a child doth submit to his father.” Ultimately, patience means being “firm and steadfast, and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord” every hour of every day, even when it is hard to do so.
Patience is a process of perfection. The Savior Himself said that in your patience you possess your souls. Or, to use another translation of the Greek text, in your patience you win mastery of your souls. Patience means to abide in faith, knowing that sometimes it is in the waiting rather than in the receiving that we grow the most. This was true in the time of the Savior. It is true in our time as well, for we are commanded in these latter days to “continue in patience until ye are perfected."~Dieter F Uchtdorf
Lately I've found myself so absorbed with my struggles, my frustration, my hurt...just with myself in general (I believe the word is self-absorbed) that I've failed to see all that is happen around me while I'm trying to work through it all. I've been so hell bent on getting answers, finding a solution, seeing an end, that I've completely ignored the blessings and strength, inspiration and insight that is all around me as I struggle. While Daniel waited in the lion's den, he did not spend his time fretting over lions...he trusted in the Lord and continued to pray and the Lord blessed him in return sending angels to calm the lions. I'd forgotten...well, if I being honest...I'd stopped believing in the Lord's love for me...and in forgetting Him, I've forgotten his promises, forgotten that He will not let me down...that there will be angels to bear me up and calm the lions in my life when I need them.
So with a renewed hope, and a spark of desire I pick myself up by my boot straps and continue along the path, clinging to the rod of iron until my knuckles are white. It is inevitable that I will fall again, that I will simply stop and sit down of my own accord...but I will get up again. I will remember that it is diligence for which I am striving...not perfection.
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