Patience

I read a talk today that Elder Neal A. Maxwell gave at BYU in 1979. He spoke on patience, something I thought I was a recent expert on, but as I read I realized that, like all great attributes, acquiring patience is an on-going process. We don't just get patience and are done with it, we need to continue to strengthen it and let it grow within all aspects of our lives. I just wanted to share a few quotes that really touched my heart and hit home with me; ok more than a few. The greatest thing I learned is that patience can change our attitude on life. I've felt as if I have been in a rut lately, not really progressing or digressing, just not moving. It's been frustrating, but now understanding that patience can help the doldrum hours of life has been a bright light in my otherwise drab days. As Elder Maxwell said, now is the time for me to reflect and prepare for the things to come. Be excited for this time to look back on where you have been and what you have learned. Life doesn't need to always be one big mess of craziness. Enjoy the quiet times and just love it all.

"Patience means caring very much but being willing, nevertheless to submit to the Lord and to what the scriptures call the 'process of time'"

"One is not only to endure, but to endure well and gracefully those things which the Lord 'seeth fit to inflict upon [us]'"

"Sometimes that which we are doing is correct enough but simple needs to be persisted in patiently, not for a minute or a moment but sometimes for years."

"When we are unduly impatient, we are, in effect, trying to hasten an outcome when this kind of acceleration would be to abuse agency."

"Patience is a willingness, in a sense, to watch the unfolding purposes of God with a sense of wonder and awe"

"...the seeming flat periods of life give us a blessed chance to reflect upon what is past as well as to be readied for some rather stirring climbs ahead. Instead of grumbling and murmuring, we should be consolidation and reflecting..."

"Patience helps us to use, rather than to protest, these seeming flat periods of life, becoming filled with quiet wonder over the past and with anticipation for that which may lie ahead, instead of demeaning the particular flatness through which we may be passing at the time. We should savor even the seemingly ordinary times, for life cannot be made up all of kettledrums and crashing cymbals."

"patience permits us to cling to our faith in the Lord when we are tossed about by suffering as if by surf. When the undertow grasps us, we will realize that even as we tumble we are somehow being carried forward; we are actually being helped even as we cry for help."



"Patience" by Elder Neal A. Maxwell