Stress Is Decreasing, Patience Is Increasing.

The past few weeks, at least for me, have been very stressful. If you want to find out more about that, read my blog "Stress is bad for you." This week has been much less stressful. I think what helped the most was having a good talk over dinner one night with Jon, a friend of mine up here at Greenville. We spent a good 2 hours talking about everything, and that definitely helped me to relax. It was nice to have someone to vent to, and I felt it helped him to have me to listen to what he had to say, too. Around that same time, I got a call from my grandpa telling me that Mamaw had gotten a new recliner and I could have the old one. Last friday night I went down and got the recliner, and got to have dinner with my parents for the first time in a long while. Usually when I come home, I spend a lot of time with my friend Ryan and others from home, and rarely get to hang out with my parents. It was nice to just sit with them and talk and have a good time. Once I got back up here, I sat in the recliner and realized that this was also a great way of relaxing as well. When you're in college and you're really stressed, it's nice to sometimes kick off your shoes, put on some Jack Johnson, and just be chill.

While talking to Jon, we discussed patience. I told him about what I had been struggling with, and he said that patience is something that is easy to talk about, but oftentimes difficult to actually attain. Being a music major, I've discovered that patience is very, very important. When I first learned to play guitar, I found it really easy to get started playing. I learned chords and praise & worship songs within a month, and was better than my teacher (David) within a few months of playing. The same happened when it came to learning chords on the piano. I sat down one night with my keyboard, and taught myself all the chords that I knew on the guitar that evening. However, when I got up here, things didn't come as easy to me as they had back home. I was having trouble understanding all the theory, having trouble getting the hang of piano, and failing miserably at guitar lessons. I was getting very frustrated and didn't understand why this wasn't as easy at it was when I started. It was about that time when I began to think about being patient. In Galatians 5, it talks about the fruits of the spirit. It says But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Some of these things, such as joy, kindness, and love seem pretty simple to me. But patience is something I usually struggle with.  Recently though, I have become a fan of it. Whether it be with college, or a girl that you like, patience is crucial.

I feel that a lot of times, God is trying to show us things and requires patience from us. An example of this was with Lazarus. Everyone knows this story; Lazarus passed away, despite his sisters continued calls to Jesus. (Here comes some paraphrasing...) "He wouldn't have died if you would've just been here, Jesus!" they cried. "It's too late now, it's useless. You took too long, and now he's gone." I think we are like this a lot of times. Something happens, whether it's the passing of a family member, a relationship that didn't go well, or even something that is taking longer than we want it to. We feel that since it's past, or taking way too long, that all hope is lost. We feel that everything should be done on our time, and not His time. Anyway, as the story goes, Jesus comes to the grave where Lazarus was set 3 days ago, and raised him from the dead. I think the biggest struggle that we as humans have is realizing that we have to work on God's time, not our own.

-matthew

1:04 pm

When They Really Get To Know You They Will Run
Pedro The Lion
Album - It's Hard To Find A Friend