David is best described as one of a kind. He’s bigger than Goliath and he’s an engineer with a sense of humor – the only engineer to ever have a sense of humor.
David, who is on the junior high mission trip, sent me the following text. This led to a text conversation, which is something I never do because it takes too much effort and drains my brain. But it was worth it. I hope you enjoy David’s epiphany as much as I did:
David wrote: “So I think I have a daily devotional for you.” I replied, “What is it?”
Then he said: “Short answer: I asked God for patience and he gave me rocks.”
Not knowing where the conversation was going, I texted back, “You moving rocks or the kids rock heads?”
David responded: “Long answer: For the last two evenings of Mission Trip I have prayed to keep these kids safe and give me patience. I am not a normally patient person, just ask Christy. So far the kids are great, but our project has been less than successful. Our first project is building wood privacy fence which is what we have been doing at home for several months. Our worksite is not posthole friendly. In the first morning we dug about 6 inches with manual post hole diggers. At lunch we got a gas powered auger, which I promptly yanked the starter rope clean out of. After 2 hours of work and some donated parts from a BIC pen, we got the auger running. That wasn’t a big success as the auger won’t touch this ground. It just polishes it. This morning we added water to the holes to soften the ground. Another 6 inches down we hit a thick layer of rock. We have been taking turns this morning chipping rock with a fence bar. After a day and a half we have two posts cemented in the ground and not much else.
I realized late this morning that God didn’t just give me patience when I asked for it, he gave me situations to help me develop it. Not what I asked for but he knows better than me what I need.”
If you think about David’s predicament, it’s his own fault. He prayed for patience and God answered his prayer – just not in the way he expected.
Like David, most of us could stand to work on our patience. That’s because patience is an essential attribute for living a life of love.
Paul said, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)
Today, in one way or another, God will provide opportunities for each of us to grow even more into the persons God wants us to be. Like David, many of us need to work on patience.
Prayer: Dear Gracious Heavenly God, help me to be a patient person. Help my life to be governed by love for you. I pray your love shines into the darkness and brings others into your light. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
At the end of the day, David sent a follow-up text that said, “We have resorted to this.” It was a picture of a jackhammer. I think they are making progress.
I pray your day is filled with joy and laughter.
Tom Robbins
Daily Devotionals by Dr. Tom Robbins 