What I learned about patience today:
“The patient in spirit is better then the proud in spirit.” - Ecclesiastes 7:8
Today in my modern world history class we were given an assignment to make a visual drawing representation of the industrial revolution. So my teacher is like no other teacher I've had before, and he’s giving us this whole speech about how we should go slow on this project to make it beautiful. And I was sitting there not really listening, just looking at the clock to see how many minutes I had left to work. Don’t rush he told us just because it was an in-class assignment.
I came up with a plan of what I was gonna do and got moving quickly on my poster. 20 minutes in I had a pretty complete scene sketched out. My teacher took one look at my sketch, handed me an eraser, and told me to start over.
My first reaction was defensiveness because he just insulted my art work (and I am well aware I am not an artist). “Jane, I want you to start over,” he said. “And this time take your time. Look at (classmate's name) poster- he’s barely drawn a thing. I want you to move slowly and with that kind of patience.”
I took the big fat eraser he gave me and erased my hurried pencil marks quite frustrated to be honest. Knowing that it wasn't my best work from the beginning I started over and ended the class period with very little done, and a feeling of lack of productivity.
God took this simple activity in class to teach me a little something about my work ethic and my patience. I'm always about "getting things done" when it comes to school- and in reality life. Even right now as I write this, I'm thinking about the things I need to do after I finish and post this. In class I was so focused on getting my task done that I was loosing sight of the bigger picture- the effort and the thought my teacher wanted from me. He wanted us students to think about the industrial revolution in a new way and to see things from another perspective.
We all know the saying, "life is a journey, not a destination." Well, sometimes it's really easy to get focused into the destination- the completion of our task. We forget to look for the simple lessons God is trying to teach us in our little jobs throughout the day. I was so focused on "getting it done" that I wasn't opening my eyes to the lesson of persistence God was teaching me. To keep trying even when I was failing to make it look "pretty enough" to my standard. The lesson of focusing on one task and centering my mind on one thing at a time. The lesson of diligence in working hard at every little assignment set before me. And most importantly the lesson in patience.
Our Creator was asking me to be patient not only with myself, but also to be still and feel His presence. It's funny how simple moments like this can be such a wake up call for us. This little moment today changed my thinking about the week. Tonight even as I did my homework, I tried to think more on just the journey of completing and the learning not the destination and the final A I hoped to get.
Be still and listen for God's voice this week. You may not realize what He's trying to tell you through seemingly simple, mundane, daily tasks.
“The patient in spirit is better then the proud in spirit.” - Ecclesiastes 7:8
Today in my modern world history class we were given an assignment to make a visual drawing representation of the industrial revolution. So my teacher is like no other teacher I've had before, and he’s giving us this whole speech about how we should go slow on this project to make it beautiful. And I was sitting there not really listening, just looking at the clock to see how many minutes I had left to work. Don’t rush he told us just because it was an in-class assignment.
I came up with a plan of what I was gonna do and got moving quickly on my poster. 20 minutes in I had a pretty complete scene sketched out. My teacher took one look at my sketch, handed me an eraser, and told me to start over.
My first reaction was defensiveness because he just insulted my art work (and I am well aware I am not an artist). “Jane, I want you to start over,” he said. “And this time take your time. Look at (classmate's name) poster- he’s barely drawn a thing. I want you to move slowly and with that kind of patience.”
I took the big fat eraser he gave me and erased my hurried pencil marks quite frustrated to be honest. Knowing that it wasn't my best work from the beginning I started over and ended the class period with very little done, and a feeling of lack of productivity.
God took this simple activity in class to teach me a little something about my work ethic and my patience. I'm always about "getting things done" when it comes to school- and in reality life. Even right now as I write this, I'm thinking about the things I need to do after I finish and post this. In class I was so focused on getting my task done that I was loosing sight of the bigger picture- the effort and the thought my teacher wanted from me. He wanted us students to think about the industrial revolution in a new way and to see things from another perspective.
We all know the saying, "life is a journey, not a destination." Well, sometimes it's really easy to get focused into the destination- the completion of our task. We forget to look for the simple lessons God is trying to teach us in our little jobs throughout the day. I was so focused on "getting it done" that I wasn't opening my eyes to the lesson of persistence God was teaching me. To keep trying even when I was failing to make it look "pretty enough" to my standard. The lesson of focusing on one task and centering my mind on one thing at a time. The lesson of diligence in working hard at every little assignment set before me. And most importantly the lesson in patience.
Our Creator was asking me to be patient not only with myself, but also to be still and feel His presence. It's funny how simple moments like this can be such a wake up call for us. This little moment today changed my thinking about the week. Tonight even as I did my homework, I tried to think more on just the journey of completing and the learning not the destination and the final A I hoped to get.
Be still and listen for God's voice this week. You may not realize what He's trying to tell you through seemingly simple, mundane, daily tasks.
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