Patiently Relentless

This is how our life should be - patiently relentless. We should pursue after our goals, hope for the best, want to teach our children about life and how it works, and desire joy, peace, and happiness. We can be relentless in those pursuits. We can work on them daily, take action on them daily, and plan for the future. When we do this we must also be patience. We must realized that these pursuits will not happen on our time schedule. We must accept that it is much like growing a garden. We plant the seeds. We tend to the garden daily, doing what is necessary - providing water when there is no rain, fertilizing the plants, pulling the weeds that can choke out the grow of the plants, keep bugs away that could eat the leaves and destroy the growth that has taken place - then we must sit back and be patient. If we attempt to give too much water, too much fertilizer, pull on the plants to make them grow faster, too much pesticide to keep the bugs away, dig around the plants too much - we end up destroying the plants and the end result of fruit because we are just relentless - impatiently relentless.

When we are impatiently relentless we are trying to make life and growth happen at a different pace other than God's. We are attempting to speed things up, make others in our lives learn things before they are ready, make things happen before their appointed time. We have a hard time sitting back and allowing God to do what God does - create, love, and nuture. We become angry then, want to assert our rights, push people along, and live in frustration and depression. However, when we can be patiently relentless we tend to others and step back and allow them to figure things out, we help others along their path without pushing them in the direction we think they should go, we do not interfere with God working in their life. We do the things that are placed in front of us each day to do so we can reach a goal, but we must patiently wait for the fruit of that labor to show up and trust that God will make it show up - but only on time - the time appointed.

Be assured that from the first day we heard of you, we haven't stopped praying for you, asking God to give you wise minds and spirits attuned to his will, and so acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which God works. We pray that you'll live well for the Master, making him proud of you as you work hard in his orchard. As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. We pray that you'll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul—not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us. Colossians 1:9-12

We do not need to "grit our teeth" in inpatience. Rather we need to allow things to happen patiently "knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." James 1:3-4

Be like Jesus in you daily life. Jesus never ran anywhere. He took his time getting to a man that he loved.

"Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, but oddly, when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed on where he was for two more days. After the two days, he said to his disciples, "Let's go back to Judea." John 11:5-7

Jesus raised him from the dead - he was relentless - but he sure was patient. Can we allow things to happen as they need to? Can we enjoy the moments that we are in? Can we just enjoy the act of being a "gardener?" Be patiently relentless as you tend to your lives and others.

Namaste'