Patience.

Lately, I have felt like Varuca Salt from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory... "but I want it NOW!" she yells to her dad as he tells her she'll have to wait for the golden egg until the end of the tour of Wonka's factory.

I've been impatient.
I want it now.
I don't want to wait.

But. I know that's not right. I know it's unrealistic and that by doing so, I am setting myself up for disappointment and failure.

Patience is the ability to hang on when everyone else has given up. Patience is the ability to release your need for immediate gratification and wait for the things to come in their own time frame. Patience overcomes criticism and intolerance. Patience develops committed relationships in marriage, family, church, community and career. Many great leaders have displayed patience by looking before they leaped, thinking before they acted, and considering before they decided. Life is a test in patience!

This week you can expect to be tested at least four different ways:

Interruptions – You will sit down to dinner and someone will knock at your front door, or your telephone will ring. You will be in the restroom and someone will call for you. Or you will be working feverishly on a deadline, you cannot afford any interruptions, and your boss will ask you to attend a meeting.

Inconvenience – Your flight will be canceled or delayed; trouble with your car may leave you stuck somewhere along the road, or even in your garage; or someone will ask for your help at an inopportune moment. How will you react?

Irritations – Somehow, in some way you will be annoyed by some of those little things that are beyond our control and make life uncomfortable. Irritation tends to bring out either the best in us - or the beast in us. Which will it be for you?

Inactivity – You will be forced to wait ... in lines, in offices, in traffic, in elevators. When you have much to do, and too little time in which to do it, standing still can try anyone’s patience. Many people I know would rather do almost anything but have to wait for any reason.

As Joyce Meyer says above, patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.