Be Careful What You Wish For...

When you were a kid, maybe you still are, did you put foil on your teeth and pretend you had braces? Maybe you wore your grandma's glasses pretending they were yours. Some of us galloped around on brooms, mops or sticks imagining we were riding across the vast open plains on a wild mustang! Have you wished on a star? A birthday candle? Did you long to unearth a lost Genie lamp so you could be granted three wishes and had you already planned out the wishes you would ask in the order you would ask them?

Some days, you might wish you could stay in bed, win the lottery, find the perfect mate, live somewhere else, have a different job, straight/curly hair, the list could go on forever.

I used to wish for patience...you know how you get patience right?

One day, it hit me, like a brick...which I also used to wish for- to get something you want, you have to work for it. How better to get patience than to have opportunities to have it. Make sense? No? ...If situations did not come around that constituted having patience, then you wouldn't need it right? So, in order to have patience, things that warrant patience from you in order to endure them with grace and style and no regrets, have to occur.

Once I "V-8ed" that truth, I stopped praying and wishing for patience! I just became more aware of the fact that I didn't really have any and watched for flare-ups of the lack of it. Then, I worked on how to have it.

Having been bedridden for months while pregnant with my daughter, I stopped wishing to be able to stay in bed. After digging bricks out of my pasture for years, I've stopped wishing for Thurber bricks. I have seen the effects of having money, it does not buy happiness, therefore I don't wish to win the lottery. Granted wishes of mine include having braces-twice. There are glasses all over my house and I've got too many horses...is that such a thing? Maybe not, but they do take work every single day, rain, snow, heat.

Having the "Patience of Job", as some people claim to see in others, would require looking at Job and seeing just what that really means.

Was Job really patient, or was he actually faithful?

Here's a man who had it all! This guy was wealthy and popular. He had a large family and friends galore! Life was great! His kids had parties all the time, his crops and herds of animals were aplenty. Everything was clicking along fabulously.

Then...(dun-dun-dun!) the fit hit the shan. The kids were all killed, the animals all died, all the crops were gone. Job was covered in sores and sent out to suffer. Alone.

Actually, God was so confident in Job's faith, He told Satan that he could tempt and torture Job, but his life could not be taken. (Job 2:6)

Day after day, Job suffered. He asked God to take the pain and burden of suffering from him, but he never cursed Him.

Friends came and went. Some offered suggestions and some just felt sorry for him. None could really understand or help.

Job's wife actually told him to just curse God and die! But still, Job trusted and waited. He had complete faith that in time God would save him from what he was going through.

Years went by...think about that. Most of the time we suffer so shortly until we give up or move on. Our sufferings are typically minimal compared to Job's or even other people we know. Do we trust God to work it out in His time or do we try to "fix" it ourselves?

Anyway, Job waited and held strong to his faith...I don't see anywhere that it says he was patient. He cursed the day he was born. Cursed his own life. Never did he curse God though.

In the end, his faithfulness paid off and he was rewarded for it greatly. (chapter 42)

I guess the saying, "The patience of Job" is kindof like saying, "She eats like a bird". Birds actually pig out. Just about all they do is eat. So, unless you're referring to someone who eats all the time, you may not want to say that about someone. And, think twice when you say someone has the patience of Job. Unless you mean they are persistent or extremely faithful. I know some pretty amazing people, but I wouldn't lay down my life that they could withstand the torture that Job did and not curse God.

Oh, and back to the Genie...That doesn't usually turn out they way the finder thinks. Typically a lesson is learned like, "Be careful what you wish for." Wishes have consequences. Put your faith in things that have relevance and are true. God, hard work and good people. And try working toward having more faith in yourself. Then, perhaps patience, happiness, wealth, whatever you were wishing for, will follow. The whole wishing thing is really for Disney anyway.