Apparently, I do not have the patience of Job - yet.

The patience of Job was that he trusted God when his entire life went to hell in a hand basket.  If you have never read the book, at least read the first two chapters to understand why someone somewhere coined the phrase “He/She has the patience of Job!”  because it clearly did not apply to me!

One would think that at my advanced age, raised a cradle Christian and converting to Catholicism as an adult (after receiving a master’s in theology) I would have the virtue of patience down pat.

Such wishful thinking.

Oh, for certain I have improved over the years, but all that is for naught when recently in tribulation (Rom. 5:3) I overdosed on impatience and then added the sin of complaining (Phil. 2:14).

My car broke down. (Ok) The closest dealer was 120 miles away. (Inconvenient, but I have towing) The dealer needs to order a special part from Germany (Um...OK).  No impatience or sin, yet, but then…

Two months passed and still no part from Germany, and guess what?  I began to lose my patience.  I started telling anyone who would listen how ridiculous the situation was and…blah, blah, blah.

After tripping over my tongue for a few days, resulting in a spiritual faceplant, I became ashamed of my actions and remembered the verses, "Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart and don't rely on your own understanding. In ALL your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path," and “Be anxious for nothing but with prayer and supplication make your desires known to God.”  

Sigh.  What a thick-headed sheep I am.

I apologized to the Lord, picked myself up, thanked God for his goodness that “leads to repentance” and entrusted him with my predicament.  I still had to wait another two months for the car to be fixed but this time it was different, and the reward was just as he promised; less anxiety.  

This whole ordeal was frustrating however, because I know God wants me to trust in him every day but putting it into practice is not easy, which is why I can relate better to the Apostle Paul – than Job - when he wrote,

Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.  For I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

Thankfully, and as Paul emphasizes so often in his works, all God asks is that we keep persevering.  We fall down, we repent, we confess, we get up!  What a wonderful Lord we serve!