lately there’s been a scene replaying over and over in my mind. it happened sometime on the afternoon of september 12, 2008. i had gone home for the weekend because liberty was playing at western carolina and i had planned on going to the game. that afternoon, just like every other friday afternoon when i went home from school, i went by the church to see my grandma to say hey and all of those things that a good grandson should do.

we were sitting there going through the typical interrogation that grandmas give their grandsons when they see them for the first time in weeks or months. how is everything going? how are your classes? are you liking grad school? how are you handling everything since you two broke up?

whoa, where’d that come from? wasn’t expecting that one.

this interrogation was the first time i’d been home since me and the ex broke up so it was the first time i’d talked to my grandma since it happened. while we’re sitting there talking through everything, my grandma said all the things that you’d expect a grandma to say. then she threw a bomb at me:

“maybe this is just god teaching you patience.”

wait, what?

what does that even mean?

patience with what?

are you saying i’m impatient?

i have no clue what you’re talking about. how about you explain that one a little more?

in typical fashion of my grandma and grandpa, she didn’t explain it anymore. i was left to figure it out myself. she wasn’t going to tell me what she was talking about. to this day, i still don’t know exactly what she meant but i have my idea and my understanding of what she said.

fast forward 604 days until today, may 9, 2010.

i’m less than a week from graduating from seminary. i’m less than a month from not having a job. and maybe most intriguing of all, i’m less than two months from the start of the rest of my life.

but i still don’t have all of the answers.

i’m having to wait for all of that to work out.

“maybe this is just god teaching you patience.”

i feel like by this point in my life that i shouldn’t be shocked when god does things in weird ways that are simply perfect, but i’m still amazed every time it happens. saturday night i sat down to do my quiet time before bed. i’m doing a reading plan that has me reading a chapter of romans and a chapter of acts every day. i had no expectations of god screaming at me through what i read on saturday night but that’s what happened.

i read through all of the text and realized that my grandma was right. god uses the things that happen in our lives to teach us patience because it’s in that holding pattern that we learn what perseverance is, what character is, and what hope is. we can try to do things on our own and yeah, they may work for a while, but if it’s not what god wants then it’s not going to work. if it’s what god wants then it’ll work even when every odd is stacked against us.

a few months ago i was talking to a pastor about the job search and where to look and what to do. he gave me a few tips and ideas but then he threw something on me that is so true that i remind myself of it almost daily:

god always works things out at the last minute.

i’ve been looking for a job since the end of january. right now, i still don’t have one. i have a few leads and a few things that look promising, but at this time i don’t have anything set in stone and i’m out of a job in less than a month. in the words of dc talk, time is ticking away, it’s tick tick ticking away.

but i’ve got god on my side.

and he’s more clutch than kobe.

i guess my grandma was right.

then again, grandmas usually are.

say your prayers and take your vitamins.

have a nice day.

-jonathan