I gave this talk on Sunday

The title of my talk today is Waiting Patiently on the Lord.

My daughter Maddie is a tremendously sweet, smart, creative girl. But like most 3 year olds, she lacks patience. Many evenings she might say “I want to go to the park.” I must be very careful how I respond, because if I say “sure, we can go to the park” she will immediately interpret that to mean we can go to the park now. And if I say “we’ll go in a few minutes” she will say “I want to go now”. And she’ll say it again and again until I can’t take it anymore. She’s very persistent, but not very patient.

Part of her lack of patience is that she really loves to play and really wants to go to the park. It’s a good desire, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But the other part is that she doesn’t have a good sense of time, so if I say “we’ll go in a few minutes” that doesn’t mean as much to her. She wants it NOW.

In the eternal scheme of things I think sometimes we must seem like 3 year olds to Heavenly Father. We look up to him and ask:

When will I get married?
When will I get a job?
When will I have a family?
When will my health improve?
When will my children return to the Church?

These are all righteous desires. But they all have the component of time associated with them, and it’s in the waiting that we become frustrated. And it’s this reason that we need patience so much - because sometimes God’s answer to us is “wait.”

Elder Neal A. Maxwell said “Patience is tied very closely to faith in our Heavenly Father. Actually, when we are unduly impatient, we are suggesting that we know what is best—better than does God. Or, at least, we are asserting that our timetable is better than His”.

Patience is closely related to many Christ-like attributes, but especially to hope and faith – because sometimes we are required to wait for the promised blessings of the Lord to be fulfilled. President Monson said, “Life is full of difficulties, some minor and others of a more serious nature. There seems to be an unending supply of challenges for one and all. Our problem is that we expect instantaneous solutions to such challenges forgetting that frequently the heavenly virtue of patience is required”.

I know that I’ve questioned Heavenly Father and his timing before, when my patience was tried and tested. Let me share one personal example.

When Melanie and I were first married, we looked forward to having children. That’s a righteous blessing, and our patriarchal blessings told us we would have children. So we had faith. And we waited. But year after year, nothing but frustration and hopelessness as we wondered what God’s plan was for us and our family. We were frustrated when people would say things to us or ask us when we were going to have kids. Of the many challenges that our family has undergone, I think this test challenged our faith and patience in God’s plan more than any other thing.

More than 7 years ago, during this time of great frustration and test of patience we were having a particularly troubling stretch. My sweet wife Melanie was diagnosed with cancer, and underwent a series of treatments. Shortly after her second surgery we received a surprising call. Through the blessing of LDS Family Services we were selected to adopt a beautiful little girl. In the middle of this tremendously difficult time, the blessing that we had hoped and waited for was finally about to come to pass. The timing couldn’t have been worse, or better. A few weeks later, and in the most unexpected way and time, our little Abby came into our home.

If we had it our way, and on our timeline, it’s possible that Abby might never have come to our home. A million things had to happen to us, and to others, to orchestrate that miracle. I think it’s safe to assume that had we been able to have children when we wanted to, we never ever would have had Abby. It wouldn’t have been part of the plan. That experience really helped us understand that God has a plan, and that when we are patient we will be blessed more than we could ever know.

I think each of you have had many similar experiences. The characters have changed, and the challenges are different. Some are bigger, others smaller. But each of us will face challenges or mortality. And when we patiently endure, we will be redeemed.

In God’s eyes, he sees us on an eternal journey. This leg, called mortality, is important, but it’s part of a long eternal journey. And when we patiently and faithfully endure the trials of mortality, we grow closer and closer to becoming more like our Father.

C.S. Lewis put it in a way that I love. He asked us to imagine that you are a living house. We invite God into our life, and ask him to rebuild that house. But like most things, this takes time and is harder than we thought it would be. At first, perhaps, we understand what He is doing. He is fixing the plumbing and repairing the roof – things you knew needed to have done and so we’re not surprised. But then He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts too much, and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to?

The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of — throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself. And he is patient in this pursuit. God is easy to please, but hard to satisfy and he will continue to work on us, here and there, patiently building little perfect beings.

Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said this: “[The Lord] gives you experiences that stimulate growth, understanding, and compassion which polish you for your everlasting benefit. To get you from where you are to where He wants you to be requires a lot of stretching, and that generally entails discomfort and pain.”

With patience we gain a better perspective. We realize that time is something that is only measured to man, not to God. We understand that the difficulties and challenges that we undergo in this life are only a small thing, and that if we endure it well we will be exalter.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said “unearned suffering is redemptive”. I think part of what that means is that when we go through challenges, when we patiently endure suffering, we are changed. Our faith is tested, but not broken. And patience is the attribute that makes that possible.

Patience is a lost virtue in today’s society. We demand things immediately, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. So much is so easily gained, that we forget that every good thing that ever comes does so line upon line, precept on precept. My prayer today is that we will each step back and patiently wait on the Lord’s blessings. One thing is sure…it will certainly be worth it.