Impatience

Well, as expected, I made it just a little over a week before the irritability hit.  I'm tired and annoyed and I want to be at my goals NOW.   I want things to come easily.  I want to wake up tomorrow and find myself closer to God in a neat, simplified home, x pounds thinner, cooking dinner for a friend.  Hell, I'm even willing to give it to this weekend. *sigh*

I envy people who already have it together.  How do they do it?   I wish the most difficult thing I had to do was fill out my pledge card.  Stewardship of God's gifts is a way of life, and no longer something I can think about once a year.  That makes it impossible for me to sidestep or take shortcuts. 

I know believe that God has provided me with everything I need - including the ability to face challenges like this.  Maybe it's the way the world is now - I can't help but want instant, not eventual, gratification.  More like Paul's conversion and less like the year-long (or longer) evolution I need to go through.  I also know believe that, if I don't work at it,  if I don't sacrifice for it, if I don't change for it, if I don't learn from it, none of the transformation I desire will stick. 

Consequently, I'm going to keep plugging away; picking up coins, eating vegetables, purging my house.  Trying to carve out sacred space and time, little by little.  Striving, with the help of prayer, to maintain hope that the road will take me where I want to go.  The end state is so inconceivable that I can't really imagine it. I have to trust God and the process.  To paraphrase a friend, sometimes you have to go to Heaven and work your way back.

"I have not so great a struggle with my vices, great and numerous as they are, as I have with my impatience. My efforts are not absolutely useless; yet I have never been able to conquer this ferocious wild beast."
- Calvin