One of the most glaring disparities between what I say and what I do is in the area of really desiring (and often seeking) immediate gratification.
I mean....we're totally set up for it in this world--well, at least and especially in the United States.
When we're hungry we swing into a fast food stop.
When we're bored we turn on a screen.
When we want a relationship we go shopping for a date online.
When we want an answer to a question we google it--- even if it means using voice activated software while we're driving.
We no longer can call this a NOW generation. It is just a NOW world--it applies equally to my children as it does to their Grandparents.
I have a long list of things I want. As in yesterday. I want the irrational: I want Mike to have never been depressed, for our marriage to have thrived, and for him to have never died. I desire that I had actually finished college the first time around, to never have left the cocoon of Hawaiian seas and mountains and to have homeschooled my kids with perfect patience and without pause. Right there describes a slice of heaven for me: to love and feel loved again, to feel "finished", safe, and to have lead my children on the best path for them at all times. Those desires, some of them cushioned beneath regret, are easy for me to lift up to God and let him mold and transform because it is relatively easy for me to accept that I cannot change the past. I cannot have any of those things right Now. For some, I have to even wait until the end of my life here on earth...
The desires that trip me up are the worthy and worldy goals that I have absolutely no patience to achieve.
I want a loving relationship with a good (in every possible way) partner. Actually, to be honest, I really want to skip to being married, eating popcorn on the couch laughing at Jon Stewart and Jimmy Fallon. I want it NOW. Not after I've "found myself" (What?!?) and slugged through the shallow pool of single men with few values, bitter hearts and shirtless selfies until I hopefully (everyone cross their fingers and toes!!) happen upon "the one."
I want letters after my name. Now. MSW? PsyD? PhD? But, I'd like to skip to at least the end of my undergraduate degree and already have received an acceptance letter to a desirable program..OH! And have a perfect nanny/homeschool tutor lined up so I can disrupt my kid's lives as little as possible.
I want to know how the story ends. NOW. Except, if I'm honest with myself I'm not always comforted by the promise of heaven...sometimes I'm like "Yeah, yeah, yeah...I get that..that's great...but, what's your fairy tale plan for working out my perfect life here on earth again?"
Me. I want it. Right. Now.
And yet, like I try to teach my children, I know (gulp) it isn't all about me and what I want.
And we rarely get what we want right now.
Nor should we.
I am admonished, more than comforted by the Psalm (27:14) that reminds:
"Wait for the Lord;
Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the Lord."
I'm lead to ponder:
"He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end." Ecclesiastes 3:11
These are jagged little pills for me to swallow. My instincts are to spit them out and throw a tantrum. NOT your time Lord, MINE! I will have courage when you give me a plan that gives me a reason to be BRAVE!
He has given me a plan....
And He has made me promises for patience...
"Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you." Luke 6:38
and
"Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? 47 Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48 he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.[c] 49 But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great." Luke 6:46-49
I take a deep breath and sigh.
Down on my knees (both figuratively or literally) I go, once again. I beg, Lord, help me build a sure foundation. Lead me on your paths at your pace and in your time. Help me be the pillar of patience and strength that teaches my children that there is nothing in this wordly existence that will ever fully satisfy. As St. Augustine teaches us, our hearts are restless until they rest in God.
Nothing I think I want will soothe that restlessness for more than a moment. Unless it is truly of God and for His glory. For Him, not me.
The only peace I've ever had or will ever have is from the peace that is built with grace on the foundation of Christ and his Church. That peace, when I dig deep and touch it once again, has not been shaken by change, death or confusion. It can't even be truly shaken by demanding desires. That peace is not something I created, but rather something I've invited into my Soul. It is there beneath the demanding two year old in my childish heart that wants answers and satisfaction right now. I know where and how to reacquaint myself with it. I just need to settle down and do it.
If there is anything at all the demands attention right NOW, it is that...
Peace...His peace...be with you..and with me...Right. Now.
