Patience is a Virtue

While I am looking for a job, I am living in Utah.  I attend two religion classes and generally go to the firesides down at the Institute at the UofU.  The past couple weeks the lessons seem to be centered around the topics of personal revelation.  In my Tuesday night class this week, we studied Elder Uchtdorf's talk, Continute In Patience, from the April Confrerence.  There were a few parts that I liked and wanted to share.

I learned that patience was far more than simply waiting for something to happen—patience required actively working toward worthwhile goals and not getting discouraged when results didn’t appear instantly or without effort.

There is an important concept here: patience is not passive resignation, nor is it failing to act because of our fears. Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something and doing all that we can—working, hoping, and exercising faith; bearing hardship with fortitude, even when the desires of our hearts are delayed. Patience is not simply enduring; it is enduring well!

The children of Israel waited 40 years in the wilderness before they could enter the promised land. Jacob waited 7 long years for Rachel. The Jews waited 70 years in Babylon before they could return to rebuild the temple. The Nephites waited for a sign of Christ’s birth, even knowing that if the sign did not come, they would perish. Joseph Smith’s trials in Liberty Jail caused even the prophet of God to wonder, “How long?”

In each case, Heavenly Father had a purpose in requiring that His children wait.

Every one of us is called to wait in our own way.

Some day I will look back on this time in my life and know what Heavenly Father's purpose was in requiring me to wait for a job!  In the mean time, I am learning about humility and growing closer to the Lord.