“But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” (Romans 8:25-26). We are often in life required to be patient. Many of us who struggle with being patient tend to assume that the reasoning behind making us wait must be arbitrary. God can't see things up from His lofty position from the same perspective that we have down here and we actually know best the timing for us to receive this or that blessing or opportunity and that time is now, if not yesterday. But even if we do grudgingly allow for the possibility that our Heavenly Father might know best, we still half assume that this whole waiting game is really just some kind of loyalty test to see if we will just shut up and take our lumps and prove that we have the patience to endure a little delayed gratification. But being forced to wait is not God playing some kind of mind game with us. The truth is, if we are being given an opportunity to be patient, then we are being given an opportunity to be a patient. In other words, we have an infirmity and know not what we should pray for as we ought, and so, we have been invited to wait upon the Good Doctor as His patients so that He can help us in our infirmities and heal our hearts and our minds and once we are ready to check ourselves out of His care, we will be ready, body and soul, to receive the exact right gift from our Heavenly Father. Some of us are checking in with sprained ankles and some of us are checking in with stage IV cancer. Some of us might need a little patience and need only be a patient for a short time, and some of us may need to work with the Good Doctor for what feels like forever. But as long as we give heed to His expert medical advice, we will eventually be able to check out and we will no longer be patients or require patience. I know that our Savior Jesus Christ knows how to succor us and help us to overcome all of our infirmities and if we will just submit to being His patients, we will see that there was nothing arbitrary about the time we had to wait before we could receive our promised blessings.
