Patience in Waiting

Do you have the patience to wait

till your mud settles and the water is clear?

Can you remain unmoving 

Till the right action arises by itself?

Lao-tzu, Tao Te Ching

 Do you have the patience to listen?  Do you have the time?  I've spent the last couple weeks budgeting.  I budget for MOPS, budget for my family, budget for the Sunday School program, but I can't seem to budget my time.  I just won't let myself create time to sit and listen and pray.  It seems so easy to shave off dollars in our budgets, but it's hard to shave off minutes of those urgent things we feel we must do everyday.  I saw a sign one day on pinterest that said "I can't go to bed, stuff is happening on the internet".  I feel like that a lot.  I can't give up a minute of my time because I might miss something.  Stuff is happening out there.  If I look really hard though, I can find time.  Just like I'm balancing my families budget and the MOPS budget, I can find places to cut.  The question is, am I ready?  

Every time you listen with great attentiveness to the voice that calls you the Beloved, 

you will discover within yourself a desire to hear that voice longer and more deeply. 

Henri J.M. Nouwen Life of the Beloved

We are reading Seven Spiritual Gifts of Waiting by Holly Whitcomb in my fall bible study group.  The gift of patience causes us to experience the slow pace of God.  God's timing has a rightness and a fullness to it that can only be found in waiting on God.  Patience is a call to prayer.  We will have to wait no matter what.  It's how we choose to do it.  Do we wait with patience in prayer and with open eyes until that water finally clears and we see what God was showing us?  Or do we run so fast that we miss everything?  Do we forget to listen and have no idea what the instructions were?  

The fullness and rightness of God's timing will be found in the waiting.  And in the waiting, we will realize those beautiful rocks turn into a more beautiful picture of fullness and life in God.  

Lake McDonald, Glacier National Park, Montana

I'm linking up with Bigger Picture Moments over at Hyacynth's today!

Be Still- The Water

Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself? Lao-tzu, "Tao Te Ching"

The right action.  The right decision.  Can I be still long enough to hear it or see it?  It seems right now in these busy last days of summer I can't do it.  I don't even have time to get to the water.   The choices and must do's are coming so fast that I can't take time to see how the pieces will all fit together.  It seems the decisions must be made right now.  And the decisions not being made "right now" are weighing heavy on me.  This week, my goal is to get to the water.  I need a moment by myself to pray first and then plan.  My praying and planning having been mixed up recently.  I have been planning and then praying it works out.  I need to settle by the water and wait for the right action to come through prayer and then plan.  

Dear Lord, please help me to sit by your 

calm waters and pray this week.  Help me to remain quiet and 

unmoving until the action you put in 

my heart speaks to me.  Amen

I'm linking up with One Nutty Girl and working hard at being still!

Clear Water

Again, I am waiting for the water to clear.  I am praying the same prayer over and over.  I'm in a situation where sometimes the answer seems so clear "yes" and other times the answer seems so clear "no".  Then there are the times when the water is still cloudy and I can't tell.  I'm an anxious person so this prayer doesn't need to be answered for many months, but I can't help but hope I can see where to go before that.  I want to feel some peace about it now, but it's not necessary at this moment.  So clear water and even more patience is what I'm praying for.

I continue to pray in the words of Lao-tzu, "Tao Te Ching"

Do you have the patience to wait till you mud settles and the water is clear?  Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?

Can I just remain unmoving and listen until I feel God has put the right decision in my heart?

Letting the water clear

I finally started a new book called "Seven Spiritual Gifts of Waiting" by Holly Whitcomb.  I'm through the first spiritual gift of waiting which is patience.  We spent time at Wartburg this weekend, going "back home" so Bryant could attend a conference.  As I reread some of the spots in the first chapter I realized that my life needs to shift a little.  No matter how I was waiting, seminary was a waiting game.  You could see the end and each step seemed years away, but also only minutes from now.  I am waiting to hear from dear friends about their first "assignments" and am praying that they take the time to wait patiently and be active in the waiting.  I know that I got so caught up in the waiting and wanting of things to come quickly our senior year that now I realize things I truly miss now that I don't feel I'm waiting anymore.  For example, worship.  Worship that fit me and truly stretched and fed me.  A connection with spouses.  We discussed this weekend that we sometimes feel we're "in the middle".  We have thought about a lot of theological ideas and spiritual ideas that many lay people have not thought about.  We are in the middle and needing to be stretched, but our spouses can't be the only ones to do that.  So we have to open ourselves up to a new way of being stretched and fed in our faith.

The one quote I liked in the book is from Lao-tzu Tao Te Ching and it says Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?  Can you remain unmoving Till the right action arises by itself?  I am trying to move away from the waiting mentality of seminary, but I can sure look back even in the recent weeks to say "the water wasn't very clear with that decision", "I thought I could see through the mud, but maybe I should have waited."  I think as a culture that gets so caught up in the now and hurry mentality we should think about letting the water clear.  I think I will be asking myself that a lot more and spending more time in prayer before I make decisions and offer advice or my time to something.  As the books says "Is God saying no because this is only a prelude to a greater yes?"  I want to be wholly present for the moments in my life so I must wait and be patient.