My dad was a big man. He was overweight and he knew it. I’ll never forget one holiday when we were both standing at the dessert table. He was scooping up his second helping. He looks up from the plate with a mischievous grin and says, “Yeah, I’m working on getting skinny and beautiful. I’ve got the beautiful part down it’s the skinny part I’m working on!” He then walked happily away to enjoy another piece of pie.

We’ve all made choices like this. We want to be healthy but dessert is calling our name. We want to be debt-free but I have to have it right now. We want a storybook relationship but we also desire physical intimacy. For a few minutes of momentary pleasure, we become unfaithful to our own hopes and dreams. We want what we want when we want it and we want what we want right now!

This is the lifelong tension that comes from trying to balance your ultimate goals with your immediate desires. I call it tension because the conflict between your ultimate goals and your immediate desires isn’t a problem you solve. It’s a tension to manage. For example, you have an immediate desire to eat and an ultimate goal to be healthy. So, you don’t ignore hunger. You learn to eat the right things at the right time. You manage your appetites to satisfy the immediate desire in a way that moves you to your ultimate goal.

Patience is that quality of character that empowers you to balance this tension well. There are a number of words that amplify the meaning of patience. Endurance, longsuffering, forbearance, grit, these are all part of patience. I’m not a Greek scholar, but in that language, the word “hupomeno” is often translated as “patience”. It literally means, “to remain under”. It’s the idea that, under these circumstances, you will remain faithful.

Patience creates the space for all good things to come to pass. Patience gives people time to change. Patience gives children time to grow. Patience gives intelligence time to become wisdom and understanding. Patience gives misinformation time to be revealed and misunderstanding time to be corrected. Patience gives people time to confess when they are wrong and forgive when they’ve been wronged. Patience gives rest an opportunity to do its work. Patience gives medicine time to heal. Patience opens up the margin for you to be able to see how satisfying that immediate desire influences your ultimate goals. Patience is the unyielding endurance of a confident faith.

This week, have patience and discover how to manage your immediate desires so that every ultimate goal comes to life.

Originally published in the Owasso Reporter March 2022