To Live is Christ — patience with me, patience with God

When I was nineteen, I went to a movie restricted to people sixteen and older. I was asked for my ID to prove my age. At the time, I was highly insulted.

Several times in my childhood I can remember wanting to be an adult, or at least older than I was at the time. While older people had more responsibilities, they also had more privileges. I wanted that.

Now I joke that I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, but more seriously, I do want to grow up, not physically but spiritually. I want to be all that I can be in Christ. As Paul said, “I press toward the mark. . . .” yet so often I am aware that the mark is a very high standard. I’m not even close to it.

Christians sometimes use this set of initials: PBPGIFWMY. It stands for, “Please be patient, God isn’t finished with me yet” and in part, comes from this verse,

. . . .being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6)

I’m not sure how many times others have asked God for patience when it comes to putting up with me, but I know that I get very impatient with myself. When I crash, I am disappointed. Not only do I disobey God, but I fall short of everything that I want to be and do. I feel like a tottering toddler or an awkward teenager and want to be mature, as in right now. I’m not very patient with the process.

However, God is patient with me, far more patient than I am and more than any other person. He knows that I will stumble and fall, particularly when I think I have my act together and become even slightly proud of myself. He knows that life’s events will catch me by surprise and for a time I will forget that He is in control and panic like a person who has no faith at all. He knows that when things go smoothly, I will be caught up in the pleasure of that and neglect to ask for His care and protection. Yet in all this, He is patient.

During Easter dinner we watched our three great granddaughters play and sometimes get into things that they should not. Everyone was patient with them. The oldest is only three, the youngest less than a year. Our expectations were not adult maturity for them, but patient maturity for ourselves. They will grow up and learn as they do. We could only chasten them for disobedience, not for being children.

My Father God has all the patience of the universe. He knows that He will finish the job of remaking my life. Someday I will be like Jesus. Since that is a given, He can be patient and confident that I might act like a child at times, but one day I will be grown up.

Since He is patient with me, and since He calls me to be like Him, then I need to be more patient like He is. That includes being patient with myself. To live is Christ means just that — patience with me, His little child who struggles to be all grown up instead of just letting growth happen, and who continually needs God to teach me and mature me along the way. I cannot do this without Him.

As I think about this, what I really need is to be patient with God.