Patience

“I believe that a lack of patience is a major cause of the difficulties and unhappiness in the world today. Too often, we are impatient with ourselves, with our family members and friends, and even with the Lord. We seem to demand what we want right now, regardless of whether we have earned it, whether it would be good for us, or whether it is right.”

~Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin

“Patience is tied very closely to faith in our Heavenly Father. Actually, when we are unduly impatient, we are suggesting that we know what is best—better than does God. Or, at least, we are asserting that our timetable is better than his. Either way we are questioning the reality of God’s omniscience [knowledge].”

~Elder Neal A. Maxwell

On Tuesday, Evan and I volunteered to provide FHE at Atria, the retirement center near our home.
Let me rephrase, Evan volunteered us to provide FHE. It was a stressful week and I was not looking forward to it. I had too much to do. I didn’t have the time. I wanted to do what I wanted to do!

While sorting through lesson ideas, I stumbled upon a lesson on patience. It clicked. What hooked me was a statement at the end of the lesson. It really put the quality of patience in perspective.

Patience was required of Noah and his family. We talk about “forty days and forty nights” as though they had to live in the ark with all those animals for a month and a half. Well, forty days and forty nights was only a fraction of their endurance. For instance, do you remember that after they went into the ark and closed the door, they were inside the ark for seven days before the Flood began? Now, would that be a test of faith or what? Would you decide, about the fifth day, that it would be awfully nice to spend the weekend picking buttercups in the meadow rather than cleaning the elephants’ stalls and that maybe Noah had made a big mistake?

Then the rains began. It was not until the fortieth day of this torrential downpour and flooding that the water was deep enough to “lift [the ark] up above the earth.” And then “the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.” We’re up to 197 days so far.

The scripture doesn’t tell us how many days it took for the waters to recede, but it says that the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat on the seventeenth day of the seventh month, and it took until the first day of the tenth month for the tops of the mountains to become visible. If we hypothesize a month of thirty days—then we need to add another seventy-three days.

Then they waited forty days to send out the raven and the dove, seven more days for the second flight of the dove, who returned with the olive branch, and a final seven days for the third flight. It sounds as if it then took another month plus twenty-seven days before they received the command of the Lord to go forth from the ark. This comes to a total of 401 days. That’s a long time to be cooped up in a floating zoo—a year, a month, and six days!

So the story of Noah teaches us that there will be adversity, that it will last a long time, and that it will require reserves of patience that seem superhuman.

After all was said and done, it ended up being a perfect evening. Somehow, the stress of service is what reduced my stress. I still had the time I needed to get everything done. I am, however, a little stressed about what the Lord has in store for me that will require superhuman patience.

(Original lesson HERE)