I love me a good success story. A story of doing it right and beautiful things coming together.
I don’t necessarily have one of those. Instead, I have a story of God’s unfailing patience towards me as I I did it wrong, failed, tried again, messed it up, gave up, came back, and stepped into a future I could never dream of or deserve.
My sister, do you know God is patient with you? Not because of your performance or your goodness, but because it’s his nature.
The Lord once came down in a cloud and stood with Moses and he said in Exodus 34:6, “I am the Lord God. I am merciful and very patient with my people. I show great love and I can be trusted.” Patient is who God is. Continually requiring God’s patience is who we are.
This morning, I sat alone on the sunkissed patio of a rural farmhouse in Tuscany, and I began to think of how God brought me here. It wasn’t all the things I did right that led me to this place in life. It wasn’t a brilliant business plan or extreme talent. Rather the complete lack there of. Every step of the way, the only continual thing has been God’s undeniable, unwavering patience with me.
I look back on my own journey and I almost feel embarrassment. Those early years were shamefully humble. Those first steps were so incredibly flawed. I was wrong. I did it wrong. I lead wrong. I planned wrong. Yet God was patient with me and continued to give me opportunities. Opportunities to learn and grow. Opportunities to fail and then get better. Opportunities to come to the end of my self and meet Him for the impossible next steps leading to a place I could not see.
Do you see God’s patience in your own story. Through the wrong relationships, the wrong choices, the wrong paths, God patiently worked it all out for you personally. He didn’t will for that wrong in your life, but he made space for it all so you would come to a place and space of seeking him fully. Your story is not a story of success, it is a story of God’s patience. A story of him never giving up on you. A story of him allowing an imperfect journey to work out his perfections in you.
And that story is still unfolding.
Within your Bible is the most beautiful story of God’s patience with a man who was dreadfully wrong, then put on a path of eternal righteousness. That man is Paul, the author of the majority of our New Testament Bible. A man God used to teach through the past 20 generations of the saving grace of Jesus. But, never forget, Paul was first Saul. Saul, the persecutor of Christians. The man on the wrong mission to stop the message of Christ. But an encounter with God on the Road to Damascus changed Saul’s name to Paul and forever changed him. Changed not because of his behavior or performance, but changed because of God’s patient work within him.
That’s why Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1: 15-16, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and I am the worst of them all. But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they too can believe in him and receive eternal life.”
Paul didn’t have to live in the shame and regret of his journey because he saw God’s patience all through that journey. That’s what God is showing me now. I’m being humbled. Through it all, he has been so patient with me.
And through your journey, as wrong or as long as it may have been, God is so patient with you, my sweet sister.
Now, here’s what the Holy Spirit has whispered to me so gently today to share with you: Slow down, stop rushing and punishing yourself. Hear God say, “I am patient with you, Beloved.”
God has never been in a rush with me. He’s allowed my every wrong turn to lead me to the right place eventually.