It wasn't a particularly clear day as we boarded our flight headed from Baltimore to Louisville, Kentucky. The clouds weren't particularly ominous, but neither was the sun visible. However, we quickly rose above the clouds after take off and could see the sun beaming down on the tops of the puffy clouds.
It seemed like an amazingly short time that the captain came on the intercom to announce that we were going to be descending into Louisville and that the flight attendants would be confiscating our garbage and make us sit upright and put our tray tables away. I glanced at my watch. We were a half an hour ahead of time!
When we landed and docked at our gate, there was no cheering for the early arrival time. Instead, every one got up and started pressing to get off of the plane. Being early certainly didn't give any of the passengers patience.
Watching people drive gives another clue, for there are plenty of folks who would cut off their mother in traffic, if it meant that they would arrive at their exit one car length sooner.
Of course, there times when one has reason to be in a hurry -- a real emergency of one kind or another, but I am afraid in general, we just are in the habit of hurrying and can't be bothered to slow down. So often, we rush like crazy only to run into a traffic jam or, some other block in our day that stops us in our tracks.
It may be human to hurry, but it brings peace to learn patience. Just learning to calm my spirit a moment or two, to slow down a little and absorb the beauty around me, helps get me where God needs me to be.
For, in my experience, God isn't interested in getting me to hurry, but rather to slow down enough to pay attention to Him and to see the needs around me. And if He has to put a traffic jam in my way to get me to slow down, He'll do exactly that.
The one thing I can guarantee is that you'll never learn patience in a hurry.
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