I Don't Want to LEARN Patience

“Why is this happening to me? What am I supposed to learn, God; patience? More patience!! I don’t have any left, I’ve already used it all to hold on this long; what now?” Most of us have been here at some point, we’ve been at the end of our rope and unable to see how any of the current troubles we face can be part of God’s will, or how any of it can “work together for good” (Ro 8:28). We’ve prayed, we’ve studied the Word hoping for answers, we’ve spoken to those we trust, but we still don’t have any answers. Where is God when we really hurt?
We all know the story of Job, how he was sorely tested in life by horrendously tragic circumstances, by losses that few of us could bear and go on. Job’s “friends” insisted that Job was to blame, that his troubles were the fault of unknown sins against God. We know that God was a righteous man, his friends were mistaken. In the end, God himself replies to Job, but no in the way that Job was hoping. He doesn’t address the specifics of Job’s troubles, nor does he offer him any explanation. The Lord simply asks Job if he knows everything like God does, or if he understands the whole universe as God does. The variety of examples the Lord uses when speaking to Job helps to illustrate for us how vastly interconnected God’s creation is. The Lord sees our whole lives, from beginning to end, and sees them combined with the multitude of people we affect for good or ill in our lives. How can we possibly hope to understand God’s reasoning with a view that is so limited? We can’t.
This may not be the answer that you were hoping for, but it’s the one that Scripture offers us. When it comes down to it, we must trust in the goodness and mercy of God, trust in the love he demonstrated through his Son, and trust that he certainly does know what is good for us, all of us. It may not be the answer that we want, but it’s the one we need.