Keep Me.

Tonight has been full of near-revelations for me..back to the drawing board and what I lack mostesttt! Patience.
The Lord has been reinforcing patience and self control and motivation in my life for as long as I can remember. And it's times like right now that I wish I had allowed Him to work how He needed, so that ultimately (even if I didn't think so right then and there) I would benefit from it. I have never struggled so much with patience. I don't just mean I get mad at red lights..I mean life patience. I've somehow forgotten that the Lord's timing is perfect and assumed that me getting an answer or solution right NOW is what's best. I assumed that everything being revealed to my tiny little heart right NOW is what I think I can handle, that if I can't foresee what's going to happen, then I can't have the patience to work with what I have right now.
.."God reveals to us WHAT we need, when we need it."
Ouch.
Not only am I being impatient, but selfish too. I was only thinking of me and how I would benefit from knowing now or having an answer now. When in reality, the Lord is just making sure I can handle the next thing before He gives me something else. Impatient me thinks: WHY!? I want to know so I can be done with this.
Patient me says: Because He cares about me SO stinkin much and knows me SO well, He is only giving me what I can carry. I may think I can hold it all, but I can't (hello, pride).
I have like a BAJILLION thoughts rolling around in my head right now, but basically:
1. The Lord will reveal things to me on His own time, as I can handle.
2. He wants me to be BOLD in decisions, seeking first His will. Not just impatiently whining for what I want to see happen.
3. I'm not failing by getting lost in uncharted waters- I'm failing if I succeed at the wrong thing.
4. I have to leave what is secure.. sometimes patience means no comfort zone.
5. There are people in my life to be stepping stones in leading me to other people-relationships take time and of course patience.
6. Patience and faithfulness. Patience and faithfulness. Patience and faithfulness.

Being faithful, we have to assume the role of patient. Hebrews 11 is testimony of SO many who were faithful to the Lord- and patience with what He was asking of them or how He was going to answer them.

Verse 7a: By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family.
Verse 8: By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
Verse 11: By faith Abraham, even though he was past age—and Sarah herself was barren—was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.
"..they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one."
Verse 17: By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice.
Verse 23: By faith Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king's edict.
Verse 29-30: By faith the people passed through the Red Sea[d] as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days.
Verse 31: By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.

Imagine if Abraham or Noah had been impatient with the Lord. Can you think of how things would have turned out if Noah said..You know God I love you and all, but I really would like you to tell me what this all means right now and explain this to me. And the same from Abraham or Moses or Rahab or the Israelites..Imagine if they had been impatient with the tasks God had entrusted them with. He gives us these sometimes daunting and overwhelming tasks because He KNOWS we can handle it, even if we can't see it all. Even if it feels like it is going to break us. He gives this to us because He trusts us to being glory to Him through it. I can't ever tell anyone to be patient because I lack it so much, but I can finally begin to understand the WHY end of patience in situations. He trusts me to handle this, but He loves me enough to only make me hold so much.

Psalm 40:1
I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry.

Isaiah 40:31
But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.