Patience

 I am NOT a man of patience. As I have written before, I am a highly-scheduled, ever-busy, achievement-oriented guy. I do not like to waste time. I am impatient.

So, a few weeks back when my friend Bob had a hickory chopped down, I told him I would get the wood out quickly. The original plan was to cut it up, which I did, and load the pieces into my truck. We discovered that many of the pieces were far too heavy to load whole--we needed to split them. I had some wood already at home that needed splitting anyway. I'd borrow the splitter from Steve and get 'er done.

The splitter wasn't available and in the meantime I had a large menacing Bradford pear cut down that I was afraid would split and hit my house. I tried to start my saw to cut up the pear--to no avail.

So I took my saw to Steve, who not only loaned me the splitter but works on my lawnmowers and chainsaws. But Steve was tied up with family responsibilities and with his day-job.

So I wait. Last week I volunteered twice to help run the log-splitter for my friend, but to no avail. so the tree sits and Bob's and in my back yard. When will we get to the cutting and splitting?  Who knows? And I wait.

And I wait.

And I wait.

And I am learning patience. Perhaps that's what G^d intended after all.

James 1 says, "2 Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."

So, I count it all joy, as I wait.