A Snowball Rolling Downhill

Today was one of those days in which confusion seemed to accompany me at every stop.  Every appointment and plan was overbooked with delay, waiting, and frustration.   The particulars are unimportant for we have all had days that tried our patience to the full measure.  Looking back I can see that mine ran out too soon.  It was like I was suddenly having a bad day and I wanted to make sure that those who I saw as causing it were having one, too.  Like old Simon Peter I had three distinct opportunities to model what it means to follow Jesus and I allowed my impatience to make me more like a gigantic snowball rolling downhill.

 

Had I prayed asking God to give more patience, it might have been understandable.   I could have simply said God was answering my prayer by putting me in situations where patience could be grown.  But, I had offered no such prayers and I am not sure it is the right thing to put the blame on my missing the mark today on God.  It was not about Him, but about me. 

In the back of mind there has been this gnawing remembrance of something from Paul's letter to the Galatian Christians.  "...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience..." (Galatians 5:22)  Ah, there are more things listed, but no need to go any further.  It seems like this has been one of those days when I have been turned more outward, allowing the external to direct my life, instead of listening to the Spirit who dwells within me as He does with all who believe in Jesus.  What I know in my head is that life is not meant to be lived in response to what is outside of us, but in response to what the Holy Spirit is seeking to do from the inside.  Looks like I still have got a way to go.