Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet. – Jean-Jaques Rousseau
It’s easy to lose patience, often the hard part is finding it. The work that we do is hard. It’s exhausting. It can drain us of all of our resources; especially patience. Frequently we find ourselves losing patience with our co-workers, supervisors, clients, partners and friends. We get frustrated with ‘the system’ and lose any patience we might have had for it. We can even find ourselves losing patience with, well, ourselves. And I think that’s where it starts: with us.
And as we work on that we will, as patiently as we can, strive to be “The Hand of God in the Heart of the City”.
Peace,
Dion Oxford, Director of Mission Integration
Prayer
Creator God, Source of all patience
I want patience
I want it now
I want peace, safety, security, family, justice
I want those now
My heart is full of desires
Some of which are selfish,
Others are focused on…others
I live in the tension of my own self-absorbed passions
And my hope for the whole world
And I want it all to be perfect
Now!
God of all love, hope and life
God of eternity
God of patience
Forgive me for my unquenchable need for everything right now
Forgive me for my raging temper when I don’t get my own way right now
Forgive us for our disputes and tensions and divisions just because we don’t have patience to work things out
It seems Lord God that you have something in mind when you make me wait
I believe I am supposed to learn something about life and love through waiting
And while I often don’t quite get how you work or why you do things
I trust in you and dwell in the certainty that you love me while you patiently shape me
Amen
– Dion Oxford