The Waiting Game

"A man's wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense." Proverbs 19:11

Impatient people are like cats petted backwards - apt to yowl over the discomfort of things not done right or not done at all. But Proverbs 19:11 spells out the divine imperative: "A man's wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense."

Unlike jigsaw puzzles, people don't always fit together perfectly. Everyone's personality has unique ins and outs. Some are busy, get-it-done types, for whom people are a means to an end. Others are more laid-back; they talk about getting something done, but never quite get to it. To them, people and relationships are the end.

When these two types get together, they can despair over the other's failures, blind to their own. Or they can see those conflicts as opportunities for their own growth.

Single until her mid-thirties, Dora had numerous roommates who stretched her comfort zone.

"I like the dishes always done and the floor vacuumed," she says. "But the Lord needed to expose my inflexibility. The roommates he sent were my opposites. They lived on the telephone and were blind to dust. But they also drew me out of myself and taught me how to care for people."

In (my) family, cartoons help us celebrate our differences and be patient with one another. Any comic strip that hits home is clipped and posted on the refrigerator for laughs. Then I paste it in a notebook, kept with the family photo albums, for repeat laughs and long-term reminders of how human we are really are.

By Jeanne Zornes, taken from "Women's Daily Devotional Bible 1"