Valentine's Day and Singleness and Jesus: Part Two- Patience

Okay, and now a little about the most abhorred subject among single ladies: waiting.  I recently attended a seminar where the singles talk was titled, "The long, hard, wait" and as a single girl my thought was, "Wait, you mean I have to learn more about waiting?? And long, hard, waiting at that??? Ahhh."  I, like you, generally dislike waiting, since I am a broken human who generally falls short at Godly things like patience. Unless you love waiting, and are just a lot cooler than than the general population.  But for the rest of us...just WAIT! Waiting is not what it has seemed!  We have been seriously deceived about the nature of waiting.  All of my life I have grown up believing that waiting was just a means to an end.  You wait SO that you can get what you want.  But, guess what! That is not what the bible says about it. 

Here is what the bible says about waiting:

"strengthened with all power,according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience ; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light."

Colossians 1:11-12

So it seems as if patience is the ends instead of the means. Wow, this really revolutionized the way I viewed waiting.  But hold on, that's a little confusing, right? God gives us power so that we can be really good at waiting? Why would God's goal for us be patience? Well here is the thing that I have been told by people of every stage of life. There is always something we have to wait for, whether marriage, or kids, or retirement, or a new house! And here is what I have heard from the bible. We are constantly waiting for the return of Jesus Christ and the redemption of the whole world. (Romans 8:18-22)

Since we will always be waiting for something on this earth, I believe that in order to be truly effective ambassadors for Christ, we must master the skill of contentment in every situation. And yes, we must be really good at waiting.  Why?  Because if we are constantly looking to the next stage of life, we can never live this day to its fullest. (John 10:10) 

Side note: I am not trying to say that singleness is easy, or that waiting is easy.  I do not want anyone to feel like the fact that it is difficult for them makes them a "bad" Christian.  It is going to be hard. I mean for the (almost) 21 years that I have been on the earth as a single girl, there are certainly days that it feels like it's been 100 years! But for the sake of this post, I wanted to show you the hope there is despite all that! 

Thanks for reading! :)