Being Patient with Purpose

“So do not throw away your confidence, it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.” Hebrews 10:35-36

I am reminded of how I feel when I’m anticipating a package delivery. In today’s society, we don’t always trust our packages are safe on the porch so we put certain parameters into place to ensure that no one gets our packages but us… one of those parameters being to tell the carriers that if no one answers the door, don’t leave the package. And that gives us security. That is, until we miss a delivery we’ve been waiting for. What happens when we’ve been waiting in the house all day for the package and the knock doesn’t come? Instead of the knock, we find the slip on the door that says “sorry we missed you! we’ll try again tomorrow!” or worse… “you can come pick your package up at another location.” No! You’ve been waiting, and waiting, putting things on hold and you should have gotten your package! You were there! If only the carrier had either knocked louder, or given you a little more time. I’m sure you can relate to this example, and you’re probably thinking that in this example I want you to relate to the person waiting patiently inside for the package. What if I told you that in this story, you’re the carrier?

I had a conversation with a young lady recently who was troubled by what she considered a lack of success. She knew she was smart and purposed, but because nothing was happening after her attempts at success, she was admittedly not sticking to it. “I move to the next thing,” she said, “because if this isn’t working it must mean I’m supposed to be doing something else, right?” How many of us do this same thing? We try something once or twice and when it doesn’t work we’re ready to go to the next “purpose” in our lives. Why are we like that? Why do we lack patience when it comes to security? What are we Nervous about?

I’ll tell you what I think. I think, we’re so afraid that if something isn’t happening now that it never will. And if it never will then somehow that means our life and our work doesn’t mean as much as it’s supposed to. There’s a term for that in the mental health world. It’s called a Negative Automatic Thought, and basically it’s when we have negatively framed interpretations of what we think is happening to us, and they’re usually triggered by Nervousness and Anxiety. It’s when Fear starts running around our minds and telling us that everything is all wrong, and it’s not. We just have to learn to be patient. We have to give life time to work out right.

Let me get back to the carrier and the recipient example. The recipient represents our purpose. Patiently waiting inside for us to arrive. It’s made all the necessary provisions for us and is ready for us to knock on the door so it can let us in. But like many a mail delivery person we jump to conclusions when we arrive at the destination. We don’t recognize the cars out front so we think there’s no one home. We think the neighborhood isn’t safe so we move faster to get away from there. We don’t knock loud enough for our purpose to know we’ve arrived. Or the worst; we were in too much of a hurry that we wanted our purpose to come find us instead of waiting at the door. Stop being so Anxious that your purpose can’t be accessed. Stop letting Nerves block your blessing.

We don’t always know what the will of God is for our lives. We hope we do, and we try to walk in our talents so we can access the blessing, but our Nerves block our confidence and the Bible tells us not to do that. It says “So do not throw away your confidence, it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.” (Hebrews 10:35-36) God has given each of us a purpose and the confidence we need to reach it, we have only but to access it. Reach deep down, push those automatic negative thoughts aside and knock boldly at purpose’s door so it can know that you are here. You have arrived. And be patient enough let it open the door. Because let’s face it, just like we get distracted or fall asleep waiting, our purpose may need to be shaken up to activate. So give it a good shake and let it fall in line. I’m so excited to see what God has for you to become.