Patience is a virtue.

We've all heard this saying. We get upset about something easily. We become anxious in waiting. And when someone utters these four simple words, the most common effect is not to instill patience, but to drive every trace of it from our minds. But the saying is true: patience is a virtue. It's a characteristic of God; therefore, we should strive to be patient so that we can be like Him.

Patience is something I'm struggling with right now. Every so often, someone will say or do something that I don't agree with, and although I won't show it, my inward response is to be incredulous that the thought ever passed through the person's mind. Of course, this is a point that I need to hand over to God, but this is not the specific instance of patience I want to address right now. Instead, I want to talk about patience in prayer.

If you've been keeping up with my latest blog updates, you know that I've been battling to decide between missions and music education as my full-time career. I have been praying that God would reveal His will to me, but, as should have been expected, His will is as hidden to me now as it was last week. As I continue to pray about the decision God has placed before me, prayer seems to lose its importance in this specific topic in my mind. But God has blessed me with the task of memorizing the book of James, which provides the answers I needed in this situation.

James 1:4 says, "Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." Perseverance—patience—is what God is trying to strengthen in me. Maybe right now the answer isn't in the the destination—the career path that I will choose— but rather in the waiting itself. Last night after Perspectives, I went to eat dinner with some friends who were also in the class, and one of them, Sean, mentioned one of his friends and what she is doing: She has no idea what God has planned for her life, and she doesn't know what kind of career she wants to go into, so she is taking an entire semester off from college just to listen to God. It's frustrating for her because she doesn't know if she's doing the right thing; it feels to her like she isn't being productive at all. But that's where Satan wants her: doubting.

Hearing that story encouraged me, and now I don't feel nearly as impatient to hear God's answer. Of course, I still wish I could know exactly what God wants me to do, but I'm more content now to just wait and let God work in me until He feels that the time is right. As James 4:7 says, "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." All I can do now is surrender all control to God and let Him work. He will give me the answer when I'm ready—"God is preparing you for what He is preparing for you" (Steven Furtick).

In a way, I was writing this to encourage myself, but I hope it helps someone else too. If you feel like God isn't answering your prayers, if you're praying every day to no avail, remember this: "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective" (James 5:16b). When we pray, Jesus Himself, the Righteous One, "is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us" (Romans 8:34). So as Paul said in encouragement to the church in Thessalonica, "pray continually" (1 Thessalonians 5:17), and God will answer.