KEEP AN ATTITUDE OF PATIENCE I need to hear from God every day, and I want to hear from Him about everything. To hear God, we must be willing to wait on wisdom out of a passion for wanting God’s will more than anything else. We will hear from God much more clearly if we are determined not to move in the heat of our fleshly desires or emotions. We will be blessed if we wait and make sure that we have heard from God before we take any steps at all. Then we should do what God is saying to do, even if it hurts, and even if it costs us something. Several years ago I started collecting classic movies on video because there wasn’t anything decent to watch on television. As a result of my buying them and people giving them to me over the years, I have a pretty nice video collection. As a matter of fact, my kids tease me sometimes and call my collection the “Joyce-Buster” movies (instead of Blockbuster). A magazine arrived at our house listing many good, clean movies. Everything listed was Christian-based, moral entertainment, and it seemed that God had just dropped the opportunity in my lap. I got excited and probably checked fifteen different videos I wanted to order. I then decided to just lay the list aside for a few days. I finally came back to it after I was able to patiently overcome my emotions and use godly wisdom. I ordered only two new movies. If I had acted the night my emotions were stirred, I would have ordered too many videos, and it wouldn’t have been God leading me to do it. We need to wait for sound wisdom before we act on an impulse that we think is from God. Learn to wait. Emotions that rise and energize us will fall, and emotional energy won’t carry us where we really need to go. We need God’s energy, which is Holy Ghost determination to follow through and do what God has said. God has a will and a plan for everyone. Each person needs to find out what it is that God wants him or her to do, then wait on His timing to do it. All of us need to follow Wisdom: Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. For whoever finds me [Wisdom] finds life and draws forth and obtains favor from the Lord. But he who misses me or sins against me wrongs and injures himself; all who hate me love and court death. (Proverbs 8:34-36) We can miss God by being in a hurry to get what we want. If we don’t wait, especially in important areas, we will bring trouble into our lives. Patience is becoming more finely tuned in my life all the time. I am a natural-born confronter. In the past, if I wanted something solved, I confronted the issue and forced a solution. It took me years to learn that sometimes it wasn’t good for me to deal with issues that directly. I learned that I could make matters worse, or get in God’s way and end up having to go through the same situation again because I didn’t wait for God’s timing. Because I was impatient, I didn’t give God a chance to solve things for me. I have learned that when I feel anxiety rise in me to handle something, I should let it rest for at least twentyfour hours. It is amazing how we can change our mind if we will just let things settle for a few hours. We can save ourselves so much trouble if we will learn to wait on God.