Nowhere is this more apparent than when I try to fix something.
I think impatience and anxiety about when things will finally happen has been around for a long time. Check out a bit of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. We wish and hope for good things to occur but we also cause ourselves stress and strain worrying about bad things. Have you ever dreaded something for a long time?
Ask anyone in my family or within earshot of our house and they will confirm that I am not a “handy” person. DIY projects and I do NOT get along. Whether it’s carpentry or plumbing or just fixing something; if you want to see me lose my religion, just put one of those in my path. It was that way with the silverware drawer.
Our silverware drawer weighed, by my estimation, somewhere between two and three hundred pounds (really I’m not exaggerating). As such it periodically ruined the cheap, plastic, drawer runner brackets that the builder installed (Who, me, hold a grudge? Never!) When this happened, it would collapse and was known to sit on our countertop for periods of up to a month if you ask my wife (she too, does not exaggerate). I’d fixed this countless times but the thing was I dreaded this job.
I knew that it was going to be a pain in the neck and a hassle and I was going to get upset, quite possibly forcing the other inhabitants of my house to evacuate for their own safety. The thing is, the last time it happened, it wasn’t a hassle. Like usual I put it off and thought about it and agonized over it and got all worked up; and then I fixed it with little to no difficulty and no swearing (we’ve petitioned the church to certify the miracle). When I was done I had to wonder what I’d gotten so bent out shape about in the first place.
Had I just taken a chill pill and relaxed and realized that things would work out in the end I would have saved myself a lot of stress. Deep down I know this is true of a lot of things in my life. Someday I hope to learn this lesson once and for all. Someday I may realize that even when things don’t happen on my time or within my expectations I should wait patiently because although they haven’t happened it’s not an “if” thing but a “yet” thing. That had to have been Paul’s view of what was going on in Rome.
I’m certain the beginnings of the church there were anything but easy. Almost no new thing is ever a hit right out of the gate. The people trying to get things going had to wonder when they were ever going to get their heads above water and be able to take a breath and some probably lost faith along the way. Paul’s words were meant to comfort, to help them relax a bit and to have the courage to lean into their struggle. We all need that from time to time. If there’s encouragement we can take from their difficulties it is the church as it exists today as well as the letters Paul wrote to churches all over the region. I hope that whatever you’re dealing with today you can be both patient and confident.
The whole patient and confident thing is NOT my strong suit, just to be completely transparent. I need to hear Paul’s words on a daily basis. When I do and I reflect on what he did and helped others get through, I think maybe I can succeed also, especially when pitted against a mere silverware drawer! If you know someone who could use a boost, please pass this along to them.
Every week I blog about life stuff, some of it religiousy and some not. You can check more of my writing out at my blog by clicking this. If you like what you read you can subscribe there or by clicking here. Subscribing is free and means you will receive an email on Saturdays with links to the posts from that week. No worries though, I never sell or share emails so you won’t receive a bunch of spam.