Happy Birthday America. I hope you have a fabulous 4th of July with friends and family! After you are done celebrating you might have to be patient as you battle traffic after the fireworks displays in your area, so we will continue talking about being patient! When we are patient, we are acknowledging that people and relationships are more important than schedules and our daily planner. Very often interruptions in our day, can be God things. Just recently, I was hurrying into a store to get something that needed to be delivered within the hour, and I ran into 2 separate people who definitely were God appointments. Those are divine moments when you know it was on purpose that you had the opportunity to encourage somebody. They weren’t on my schedule, and I hadn’t put them in my daily planner, but wow, I’m so glad I didn’t pass up those God moments. It did make someone who was waiting on me have to be patient, and thankfully, they were. Maybe you’ve heard this said. Hurry isn’t of the devil, it is the devil! I think you understand the sentiment. When we plan our days so tightly, or when our life is in chaos because we are running around harried all the time, we can be making everyone else have to be patient with us! Let’s be realistic about how much we can accomplish – I just looked through my to do list for today, and I may be preaching to me! Usually when we do practice patience, our productivity increases! Sometimes when productivity decreases in an employee, they may be going through something in their personal life that is overwhelming. Instead of just letting them go, it may be better to practice patience and find out what is going on in their world. One of the most dramatic illustrations of not knowing what is happening in someone’s life was told in this story. A man was on the subway with his 3 children on a Sunday afternoon, and his children were unruly and he was doing nothing about it. A woman sitting near them scolded him for not controlling his children. He gently and patiently commented back to her that they just left the hospital where his wife had passed away. Thud moment. You never know what people are going through. Let’s be the ones who show love and patience to each person we meet.
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