The Importance Of Having Patience

This video is from President Uchtdorf's April 2010 Conference talk entitled Continue in Patience

One of my biggest pet peeves are bad drivers. If you live in Salt Lake, and you drive, and a day goes by where you do not see any construction, the millennium is probably happening. Being from Utah, I am not exempt from being a bad driver myself. So this leads to a lot of road rage. The other day I was behind a guy and he decided to take a left in a no left turn lane, so he holds up traffic, as I pass him I see his window is down, and I yell, "you can't turn here, you moron!" And maybe gave him a hand gesture or two. Out of all the things that "drive" me crazy, it is traffic. Once someone riding with me asked, "what would Jesus do?" And my reply was, "ummm He wouldn't drive." When I know that He would be patient, and be that person that we all love that let's everyone cut in. 

I learned that the average human being tries to get things done faster and squeeze more time into their day. For example when we wait for an elevator and we try to "speed it up"  we push the button faster. The same thing for crossing side walks, we push the button faster. My favorite impatient thing that I learned we do are the handles to cars, we have all done it at least once, try to open the car door at the same time the person pushes the unlock button, or get up to the car and test the handle hoping the car was already unlocked. Obviously there are some things we can't control. for the things we can control, we seem to want to will it do get done faster, when we should be taking a step back, analyzing the problem, and solve it with time. What causes us to be so impatient? I believe it is largely in part to our need to find time to sit and relax, or "make" time to have more entertainment in our lives. Why is it that when we are doing something fun and entertaining that time "flies" by? Why is church, work, and school so long? It is at these times where we learn patience the most.

We need to separate our wants and desires to have fun, from the things that are more importantly needed, or we can align them to be both beneficial and what the Lord wants and desires for us. In writing this, do I think I will have more patience when I drive? I know that my temper and attitude is entirely up to me, but that bad  drivers myself included, are going to happen. Then I begin to realize how patient the Lord has been with me, and that allows me to stop and ponder, and try to be patient with others. When we are patient, we begin to see a bigger and brighter picture, we appreciate things more, we value our time better.