That Thing Called Patience

Hi Family

In my last few posts, I’ve been hanging around King David, before he was king of course. The last few passages we talked about were in Chapter 22. But today we are going to fast forward to chapter 24. My reason, and some of you who really know me may laugh because it’s so true, is I have a problem with Patience.

I was driving with my kids just yesterday just to run an errand and I was rolling along when I saw a police car coming toward me from the opposite direction. Of course, like many of you, my first reaction was to check my speedometer. Yea, I was about 7 miles over, OOPS! So I had to nonchalantly slow myself down and as he passed by me I knew I still wasn’t quite at the speed limit. So I watched him on my rear view window as I repeated “just don’t turn around. Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around.” And I saw him turn in to the very next street and said “shoot, he’s gonna turn around.” Well, God was once again looking out for me and although the officer turned into the very next street, he never actually turned around and came back. Whew!!!  THANK YOU LORD FOR YOUR GRACE!!!!!

Unfortunately, I had not learned my lesson. A little bit later after stopping at a store, I was getting on a certain road where the speed is a little higher but it’s not a highway, and there are cars that are slowly merging into our traffic. But traffic was really mild at that time. Well, there was a large pick-up truck that was hauling vehicles behind it and he slowly merged right into the lane I was driving in, but the way he merged into traffic was so wide, that I could not tell if he was staying in my lane ahead of me, or if he was trying to merge into the next lane. I will admit my patience started to run thin again because he could not pick up speed. It was clear that he was carrying a lot of weight with those few vehicles. But in my mind, for my purposes and my timetable, it was not acceptable to be merging into traffic that is going a certain speed when you can’t pick up quickly. Finally he straightened himself out and stayed in the lane in front of me, and I quickly jumped into the left lane to quickly “skoot” by him. After I did that, I looked at my son who was sitting in the front seat next to me and said “see, clearly I have not learned my lesson about just being patient and I can’t complain if I get myself into trouble.” And he just agreed with his “Uh yea”.

Pray for me family. This patience thing can be costly if not checked!

So here is what I want us to see. David had some patience. But his patience was rooted in faith. I can’t root my driving impatience in Faith. But there are other parts of my life where I can root them in Faith. There are some things in your life that if you can’t really put the Faith in it, patience will not be available for it. So here’s how it worked for David.

We know David was anointed to be King. He knew it. He believed it. And no matter what was going on, including when he was on the run from Saul, he still believed and stood on it. I’m sure David had moments where he said “God, this don’t make no sense. This doesn’t seem like the path to a kingdom for me. What kind of King am I supposed to be???” But even through those thoughts he still believed God. God said it and that settled it for David. He just needed to make it to the promise.

There are some things that just like David, I know God is going to do for me. And because of the fact that I KNOW God is going to do those things I have a sense of patience that I don’t have at other times… like when I’m driving. But that security in some areas of my life where I know God made me a promise I have a supernatural ability to wait. It doesn’t mean that I don’t sometimes wish God would just go ahead and DO that thing. But it just helps me to be able to wait in the process KNOWING that when it finally happens, it’s going to be such an amazing and powerful moment in my life.

So since David had found himself in the cave with the support of his family and hundreds of unhappy men that joined him, he honed his leadership skills and went on travels with them fighting. Sounds like leadership training to me. Finally we get to a point in 1 Samuel 24 where we found that David has found himself in a position where HE can go ahead and basically fast forward Gods plan to make him king by killing King Saul who had decided to go out himself with many many troops and kill David himself. Here’s the situation David found himself in…

1 Samuel 24:3-4 NLT

At the place where the road passes some sheepfolds, Saul went into a cave to relieve himself. But as it happened, David and his men were hiding farther back in that very cave!

“Now’s your opportunity!” David’s men whispered to him. “Today the LORD is telling you, ‘I will certainly put your enemy into your power, to do with as you wish.’” So David crept forward and cut off a piece of the hem of Saul’s robe.

I read that verse so many times. I probably would have thought the same thing David’s man said. That God was putting his enemy in his hands to handle. But David knew better. This was something that God had to do Himself. This was also part of David’s training to be King.

Learning Decision Making Skills and Patience.

He clearly could have listened to his boys and just walked up behind King Saul and killed him easily. I mean, he cut off a piece of Saul’s robe and Saul never noticed!! That’s either a REALLY sharp sword or a really distracted person. Either way, the present conditions were ideal for David to handle business himself. But he didn’t. So what was the point of cutting off the piece of the robe???? No he didn’t want a reminder, he was wanting to prove a point. Here’s what happened a few verses later…

1 Samuel 24: 7-12 NLT

So David restrained his men and did not let them kill Saul.

After Saul had left the cave and gone on his way, David came out and shouted after him, “My lord the king!” And when Saul looked around, David bowed low before him.

Then he shouted to Saul, “Why do you listen to the people who say I am trying to harm you? This very day you can see with your own eyes it isn’t true. For the Lord placed you at my mercy back there in the cave. Some of my men told me to kill you, but I spared you. For I said, ‘I will never harm the king—he is the Lord’s anointed one.’  Look, my father, at what I have in my hand. It is a piece of the hem of your robe! I cut it off, but I didn’t kill you. This proves that I am not trying to harm you and that I have not sinned against you, even though you have been hunting for me to kill me.

“May the Lord judge between us. Perhaps the Lord will punish you for what you are trying to do to me, but I will never harm you.

So we can see, when YOU know you have a promise from God, the last thing you need is your friends in your ear convincing you to take chances in your life that you are not supposed to do. YOU know your promise and YOU know that if God said it, then that settled it. YOU know how to wait on God for everything to work out and your promise to manifest.

What did God promise you? Don’t get impatient in the wait. Don’t get impatient when things are not looking like the promise. We ALL have questions along the way. No one can convince me that God doesn’t understand that when we get confused and lost along the way we end up asking Him “What in the world?? This doesn’t look anything like what you said I was supposed to have.” As long as you remember GOD SAID IT AND THAT SETTLED IT.

Don’t take matters into your own hands trying to speed up His process. There is sometimes grace along your journey that you need to recognize and pickup that you will need in order to handle the manifested promise. You don’t want to have to rewind later in life in order to have to come back and learn/obtain missed grace just because you decided God was too slow and you “found” that you could manifest the promise yourself. Some things take time. But when you get it you will realize that it was so worth the wait.

I love you all. Be Blessed.