Typically when we think of the fruit of the spirit we skip over a few of them. Love and joy get a lot of press time, but we don’t think a lot about patience. But there it is, alongside all the other traits the Holy Spirit is growing in us. And make no mistake – He is growing them.

Nobody likes to wait.

In fact, most of the innovations we see in the world today are aimed at decreasing or eliminating waiting. A silly example, but consider how different an experience we have in going to the movie theater today as compared to just ten years ago.

A decade ago, you would go to the theater and wait in line to buy tickets. Then you would wait again for your tickets to be torn. Then you might wait in line again to buy concessions. Then you would wait again through the previews for the movie to start.

Then there’s today – you purchase your ticket through your phone before you go. You walk right in past the ticket scanner to the theater. You order concessions beforehand and have them delivered to your seat. And if you don’t want to wait through the previews, you can find an online listing of exactly how many previews and how long they are so you can arrive at the time when the movie actually starts.

You could run that same exercise in most any industry or experience and find the same thing – we hate waiting, and anything that decreases the amount of time we have to wait is embraced as positive.

Now I suppose in one sense, that effort at eliminating waiting is a good thing – it’s a recognition, even if it’s subconscious, that time is our most precious and most limited resource. That all of life is a ticking clock. And that given the scarcity of that resource, we don’t want to be time-wasters.

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