As I grow older, I’ve noticed more and more that in order to succeed in life, you have to have patience. The sad thing is, I have realized that I’m more patient with others than I am with myself. When I create a goal, I want to achieve that goal as soon as possible. I want to have it in my hands as of yesterday. Yes, I realize how foolish and unrealistic this sounds. I am naturally inclined to be impatient; which is a battle I constantly must fight against.
I know firsthand how detrimental the consequences can be when you allow impatience to rule over your life. When you allow the demon of impatience to take over your life, it will destroy your entire being starting with your spirit, health, and finances.
Spirit
When you are impatient that means your intensity to achieve your goal is out of control. Your mental capacity is running rampant with all sorts of negative traits that help Satan to conquer your thought life. As a society, we’ve been conditioned to think that action is progress but it’s not.
What society left out is that if God wasn’t a part of the equation in your decision-making process the action(s) you take will most likely result in destruction. Living our life based on society’s rules is why we become impatient. This faulty way of thinking causes us to worry and feel as if we must rush and take any type of action. What we fail to realize is that impatience is a sign that we do not trust Christ.
Impatience causes us to have a one-track mind. We become so focused on doing whatever it takes to achieve our goal that we fail to realize that Christ is not with us. Even worse we start to think that any type of action is better than taking a moment to pause and go to God in prayer. With this faulty way of thinking, Satan will surely deter us from obtaining the blessings that God has in store for us.
Allowing impatience to remain unchecked in our life will cause us to make it up a ladder that is leaning against the wrong wall. To avoid this disaster you need to know how impatience creeps into your life. With me it is my competitive nature that allows impatience in my life. I know when I allow impatience to take over, this faulty way of thinking has the potential to mess with my health.
Health
In my case, that anxiousness to achieve my goal causes me unnecessary stress. I already have major digestive issues so whenever I’m stressed, my stomach turns into an absolute hot mess. My stomach flareups are unbearable and sometimes I get a headache all of which make me feel like I want to die. Impatience when left unchecked can really mess with your health.
Leaving Impatience unchecked in your life can cause you all sorts of problems. It can cause you to feel irritable and place you in a position where you lash out at others. These unnecessary fights will without a doubt add additional stress to your life. I absolutely hate feeling this way, so I have several techniques that I use to help me manage impatience.
Eating healthy and making sure toxic people stay out of my life works wonders. Another technique I use to combat impatience is exercise. During those times I feel impatience bubbling up inside, I exercise. Exercise allows me to release all that negative energy. Through exercise, I’m able to channel all that negative energy into something positive and fun such as dancing, running, kicking, boxing or biking.
You make a huge mistake when you allow negative energy to live inside you. It will distort your decision making process. This will cause you to make costly mistakes especially when it comes to your finances.
Finances
Thinking of all the mistakes impatience caused me to make had me thinking about the cliché “Money does not grow on trees.” Growing up, this statement became abundantly clear to me. It really hit home when I got my first “real” job outside of babysitting. I worked at McDonald’s for 3 months and then I worked in retail at a store called Carson Pirie Scott until I graduated from high school. One of the main reasons I worked during high school is because there were some things I really wanted but my parents couldn’t afford. Therefore, my paychecks enabled me to add on the “extra” money that was needed so I could buy whatever it was that I wanted.
Let me tell you, when I was in high school my ability to discern between what I thought was a need and what I wanted changed real quick once I started looking at my paycheck. I did not make a lot of money working in retail. Therefore, I had to evaluate how badly I wanted something based on my willingness and patience to save up for it.
I’ll never forget, in high school, I was nominated to attend a National Young Leadership convention in Washington, D.C. We were going to attend events that further developed our leadership skills, tour sites and places that people normally don’t gain access to, and the list goes on. This was pretty much in my mind the experience of a lifetime. My parents wanted me to go but they didn’t have all the money. I worked extra hours during the week and on the weekends so I could save up for this trip. I was short about $600 and Carson Pirie Scott helped me finance the rest of the money that I didn’t have in order for me to achieve my goal for going on that trip.
Saving for that trip put so many things into perspective for me. It taught me patience and a sense of accomplishment. I learned that you enjoy life more when you work for your goal rather than have it handed to you on a silver platter. When things are constantly being given to you, you miss out on the lessons patience has to offer. Without learning these lessons, we take our blessings for granted.
During our journey to obtaining our goal, if we do not allow patience to rule our life, we will make major mistakes. Thinking of those mistakes that would have occurred due to my impatience, could have been extremely costly financially. There were times that I almost made major financial mistakes. My trouble was minimized because God gave me a savvy mom who helped me out of these situations.
As much as I hate to admit this, sometimes, you just get tired of waiting. You start looking around wondering, “Why doesn’t so-and-so have to work to get (insert what you’re saving for)?” As my mom always says, “Unless you’re willing to do exactly what that person is doing then stop paying attention to them. Are you going to wait on God or do it yourself?” Anytime I didn’t wait on God I ended up making unnecessary financial mistakes.
Impatience is not keeping our wants in check. This distorted way of thinking will mess you up every time. Mainly, because we stop trusting Christ. Many of us get into debt because we don’t trust that God has everything under control. The bottom line is that we want God’s blessings but not his knowledge and guidance for how to obtain and use the blessings. When God wants to teach us how to handle our blessings, we take this as God not wanting us to be happy and not giving us our desire.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. God does not hold back anything from us (Jer 29:11). What God knows is that without the attributes of Christ, our behavior would be like a swine. We would just trample God’s blessings under our feet (Matt 7:6). Sometimes, it takes us a while to obtain our desires because God knows we’re simply not ready for it and/or God’s trying to get everything perfect so when you get your blessing you can really enjoy it (Jer 29:11).
The key to rid ourselves of impatience is wholeheartedly knowing that God’s timing is perfect (Rom 12:2). If you don’t keep your impatience in check you will be like the person in Haggai 1: 5-7. This person was constantly making money but couldn’t maintain the wealth that they accumulated because their mindset was not right. Now, you may be wondering, “My finances are already a mess. What do I do now?” Trust me, I’ve been there.
The answer to your question is that you need to start putting God first in your life. Through personal experience, when I started to put Christ first in my life, I noticed everything started to change…even my finances . I can personally testify that the verse in the Bible Joel 2:25 that God will give you back the years you lost are not just words on a page. I can honestly say, I’m finally living the extraordinary life that I always dreamed of. I never realized that I was the one delaying my blessings due to impatience. Regardless of where you are in life, the struggle to conquer impatience will always be worth the battle.
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