Patience part 2
Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit. Believe it or not. It's easy to lose control. Especially if you're not patient. If you think you always need to be DOING something. Sometimes less is more. Sometimes we need to let things play out instead of always trying to force them to be what we think they should be. It took me a long time to learn this lesson, but learn it I did: Just because something is right for ME, doesn't mean it is right for YOU. Because you and I are different. And that's ok. In fact, that's beautiful. That's perfect. That's just how it should be. My best me isn't necessarily your best you. So look at our key memory verse for this Rant series: "In your patience possess ye your soul" (Luke 21:19). It's kind of like, "You aren't really you when you're hungry." When you lose your patience you aren't really you. You lose yourself to the circumstances you find yourself in. Which, in truth, is tragic. Because the fire in you is ALWAYS hotter than the fire you're in. You don't have to be a thermometer. You don't have to just take the temperature of the room and accept it. You can be a thermostat. You can SET the temperature. You can, when you know you have the peace of God inside you, make peace. You can, when you understand that Jesus overcame the world, be of good cheer even in the midst of tribulation. You don't have to let things get into you, when you know what's already in you. When you're full of the Holy Spirit... there isn't room for anything else. If you turn on a light in a dark room... it's not a dark room anymore. There isn't room for both light and dark. There isn't room for both love and fear. Full of one means empty of the other. There isn't room for rest and impatience. If you're not resting, then you're working. And work doesn't work, spiritually speaking. You can't earn a gift. Jesus's eternal, everlasting, abudant, Resurrection Life of love is the gift of God. We don't need it, because we already have it. We simply need to experience it (and enjoy it) by sharing it. By giving it away. Patience is being who YOU are no matter what is going on around you. No matter how other people are acting... you can always be yourself. The way people treat you says more about THEM than about YOU. The way YOU react says everything about you. I once heard it said life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you react to it. You can fly off the handle, but that's no good for anybody. Or you can possess your soul. You can stop letting external forces dictate who you are. You can let what's inside come out instead of letting things from outside come in. You can check yourself before you wreck yourself. You can be who you are (who you really are, who you are in Christ, who Christ is in you) no matter what. You can be patient. You don't always have to react right away. Don't take things personally, even if they are. Control yourself. By letting love control you. By letting the Spirit lead you and guide you and direct you and protect you. When you're running around like a chicken with its head cut off you're not you. When you're patient, you possess your soul. When you're at rest, you are who you really are!