Growing Patience

After 19 years of working at a marketing agency, I was laid off when the company downsized. The most important thing on my mind as I drove away with my little box of personal items was to find another job. The twenty-minute drive home was a one-way discussion with God. I knew He had a plan. I knew it would unfold to me in His time. I trusted Him. I asked for patience.

And, I asked Him to help me in the decision-making process. I asked that the first job I was offered would be the one to which He wanted me to say yes so that I didn’t agonize over the decision.

For the next six weeks I applied to at least three places each week so that I continued to receive unemployment checks. No one called for an interview. Before I left to work at summer camp, I learned how to call in remotely to hear my answering machine messages, and I packed good clothes to wear to an interview when I got a message. Every day, I checked for messages. There were none.

With the tiredness that comes from serving in camp, I called one more time to see if I had a message … and there were still none. I crumbled. I cried – in public on the bench under the payphone. “God, why? I’m a good employee. I work hard. I’m efficient and I learn well. Why doesn’t anyone call me for an interview?”

And then a still, small voice inside my brain said, “Lynnette. You asked for one!”

Yes. Yes, I had, so why was I expecting many?

When I went home after camp, I saw a light on my answering machine. I did not realize that I had two message queues, and I was only checking one. Ron Klassen, the Executive Director of RHMA, had left a message the day I had the meltdown at camp. He asked if I’d be willing to come in for an interview.

Now isn’t that interesting? 

I’m now starting my 19th year of serving with RHMA. (How I came to apply at RHMA is another interesting God story.)

Patience is the ability to accept delay without getting upset. I did well until I became tired and took my eyes off my God and turned them onto myself. Patience is a fruit that appears in our character when we are drawing from and rooted in the Spirit of God. 

You can’t be patient on your own strength, because patience is being willing to wait for God’s solution in God’s time. Take time to learn more about our great God, and you will find it is easier to trust Him in everything. Even His timing.