Proverbs on the Patience of Pants

Soooo...
It has been a long time since I posted. My kids have been reminding me that the idea of a blog is to log my ideas on a semi-regular basis.  If you are reading this, thanks for keeping your pants on!

I want to talk about patience.  A proverb says "a man who hurries to get rich will come to grief."  You can apply this to something obvious like people wasting their money on lottery tickets or joining Ponzi schemes. (Or as spell-check is telling me, Pontiac schemes.)  You can take it a step further as an admonition to those type-A personalities -- "Dude, stop and smell the roses!" or like that.  But in my own life, not being a type-A type or much of a gambler, it has had for me more of a lesson about worrying -- or not worrying -- about financial stuff.  I worry when I think it is all up to me, that if I don't fix it we're going down the tubes.  That's when I panic, make hasty decisions out of fear.  These never turn out well. I do much better when I remember I have a loving God who cares what happens to me and mine. When I can trust that God is looking out for us, I can look at financial difficulties with a more objective eye.  Then I make better choices -- I am not tempted to cut corners or sell a kidney or buttonhole people who owe me money.

Another proverb -- really the complement to that first one -- says "the blessings of the Lord are pure, and He adds no sorrow to them."  Those are the blessings I want.  The ones that last. The ones that don't come with a built-in booby trap made from the shrapnel of my own haste and fears.  And as they say: You get what you pay for.  When I'm willing to pay the price of waiting on God's provision (see folks, this is where the patience part comes in), He always comes through. Yep, always. Waiting is rough though. Patience feels like a very stiff price to pay while I'm searching my pockets for quarters to buy a gallon of gas.

A good woman who taught me a lot when I was a young and naive 20-something with 2 kids already... (Whew, I'm out of breath, are you?  Sorry. I just realized that that sentence needs to be a whole blog post of its own some day.)  Anyway this woman, call her Mrs. N., was a big King-James-only fan. (We're talking Bible versions now in case you're lost.)  I'm a New American Standard gal myself, but I thought her best argument was this: Most versions of the Bible say "patience" while the KJV says "long-suffering".  "What's the difference?", I asked Mrs. N.  Her answer, "the suffering."  Deep, huh?

But wait, you say!  Suffer now, suffer later, what's the difference there?  Especially if, meanwhile, I can be rich?  Apples and quinces, my friend, apples and quinces. Let me explain. But you already know. You know that suffering can have a purpose, accomplish something in your life -- exercise, childbirth, really tight jeans. But sorrow, sorrow is when you lose something that you can never get back.  Sorrow is loss and regret. God knows what He's talking about!  Hasten to be rich and you are picking green apples. Sure, you'll be the first one at the tree, but you'll get a stomach-ache from eating them -- sorrow and puking and regret!  And if you pick them all, none are left to mature.  Wait for the apples to ripen, even if you are hungry meanwhile, and your reward is sweet!  And quinces, as I recently discovered (thank you, Martha Stewart!) are sooooo yummy, that even though you can't eat them raw, it is worth the time it takes to wait for them to ripen and then to cook them too! 

I wonder how many people blame God for their self-imposed puking fits, and then later blame God again when they see the apples ripen on other people's trees, and theirs are bare, because they picked all their apples green?  If they had just kept their pants on; I'm thinking denim overalls in this case...