Brothers and Sisters in Christ-this is a weekly devotional thought I sent out to the hospital where I work as chaplain.
I went shopping for a battery this weekend. Pretty boring, huh? My grass trimmer do-hickey won’t last more than 3 minutes or so and my brother has offered me one of his batteries as a replacement. But he lives 90 minutes from me and I don’t want to wait so I go out on my own. I go to the local hardware store and the battery is $40 and I’m mad. I’m not spending that on a battery when if I’m patient I’ll get one in the next couple weeks. Meanwhile, I want to find it cheaper and my trimming is overdue in the yard!!
I go to two large “box stores” in my town and each have a battery like I need, but alas, they also are $40! So we have in my town a little “Thrifty store” that looks like a cross between plumbing, building supplies and farm implements. I’m not sure who they are trying to draw in but they only have an electric trimmer for $29 which I could do. As I look at the electric trimmer I remember I’ll need a longer extension cord than what I currently have. And of course, the 100 foot extension cord is around $10….sigh…I’m up to near $40 again and this time I’ll have to drag around a cord. All I could picture was me out by the curb 100 feet and 5 inches from the house and not being able to reach the edge and waving to the cars that go by thinking “Look at that guy!”
So another great analogy to the spiritual life isn’t it? We want what we want and we want it NOW! Patience anyone? Do you know the prayer for patience? “Lord, give me patience and give it to me now!” I talk about this with almost all the patients I visit….I ask them if they are a “patient patient” and it’s so hard. Be patient my friend, all good things come to those who wait. In my life how this works is to remind myself constantly to slow down. I feel an internal “push” to get to the next thing, do the next job, move to the next moment” and I lose any kind of present moment happiness sometimes.
The Lord models this for us. Just imagine all the people that begged for His time and attention…..but also notice how often Jesus went up the mountain, or away somewhere, to pray (Matthew 14:23 for example). When is the last time you just stopped and prayed? Or stopped to give thanks to God and name 4-5 blessings? Have you ever visited the chapel for a little quiet time, or to download?? Try it today and be patient first with yourself and then with others and thank God that life is beyond our control! All we have to do is follow….and wait! That’s what I’m doing about my battery, I’ll be seeing my brother this weekend and the grass can wait!
Pr. Doug Givan
Chaplain
Seton/Lafayette
Clay/Brazil
Eric is our current Webmaster and works on the NLS Communications Team. Raised in Judaism, he found Christ and the New Testament at age 16 in a Southern Baptist Church. He searched many denominations for the real church, only to find the Holy Spirit is present in all of them. He's worked for One for Israel, a group of native Israeli believers who are sharing the gospel in the holy land in Hebrew and is part of the only Hebrew speaking seminary in Israel.
