How patient are you?

When I drive to work in the morning, I see a line of cars...sometimes six or more...waiting in line to go through the drive-up at a popular, Seattle-based coffee hut. Whenever I see that many cars, I wonder who would have the patience or be that addicted to caffeine to wait a half an hour in line for a $4 to $5 latte or some other coffee-based concoction?

Certainly not me. To this day, I have all the patience I was born with, because I certainly have never used any. 

A month ago I went to a chain bank in Mandan where Grandpa does his banking. Grandpa had a certificate of deposit due so we came to the bank to renew it. The interest rate is so low -- nearly non-existent -- that it really wouldn't matter if the money was in a simple savings account or a CD.

Anyway, I walked into the bank with Grandpa and we were greeted by a teller. I told the teller what we needed to do and the teller informed me that we would need to wait for the next available "personal banker." So we went and sat down, only to find an old woman and a young couple also waiting.

I asked the woman how long she had been waiting. She told me a half hour. She also said the young couple had been waiting longer than her. So I asked them how long they had been waiting. The answer was "nearly an hour."

I couldn't believe it. Since I inherited my patience from my dad, there was no way we were going to sit in the bank for an hour to see a  "personal banker" to renew a CD. So we got up and walked out.

The friendly teller noticed this activity and asked me if there was anything she could do. Since she was friendly, I was friendly. I told her that I thought the bank needed to do a better job at providing service to its customers and that there was no way that I would wait an hour for such a simple task.

She took our names and phone number and told me that a  "personal banker" would be calling me to set up an appointment for next week. I did get a call and I did show up and finished our banking activities...a week later than I had initially planned.

So then I got to thinking...what would I wait for the longest? Well, I've waited a long time to see a doctor. They have a little trick at the doctor's office. They call you out of the waiting room and take you to a little  room in the back somewhere. A nurse takes your temperature and checks your vital signs. And then you wait and wait and wait to see a doctor.

When dad lived in Roundup, he actually got up and walked out of the little room at the doctor's office because he got tired of waiting. I haven't done that yet, but I'm tempted.

I also hate waiting to get a haircut. However, I always have to wait because I take dad with me and he always gets his hair cut first. Luckily, though, I generally don't have to wait too long. But if I walked into the barber shop and saw six guys ahead of me, I would turn tail and run.

Do my stories sound familiar or are you a more patient person than me? How long would you wait for a cappuccino?

Some thoughts about our living Lord

Generally, the only time I discuss my faith is when I'm in our Sunday School class or I've been asked to fill in for the preacher. I'm a guy who believes that the best "testimony" we can give is by how we lead our lives as individuals.

But this past week, the Lord has been speaking to me and I wanted to share some thoughts.

Sarah Fredricks preaching 

First, last Sunday, I went to the Bismarck Nazarene Church to hear the message from Sarah Fredricks, a young lady from Mandan who is attending college in Kansas with the hope of becoming a Christian missionary.

Her message was a simple one, "God can use anyone to advance the good news." For Biblical text, she referred to Moses who was trying to wiggle out of God's request for his life. "Pick my brother, Aaron," Moses said. "He speaks better than me." But God picked Moses...and the rest is history.

Her message spoke to me on so many levels. She talked about how we are not the ones who provide the living water. That is Christ, but our lives are to be conduits of the living water to others. Yet, we manage to clog up our pipes with all kinds of messy things that don't allow the love that God has for us to flow through us. For me, a couple of the clogs are "busyness" and "lazyness." There is probably also self-centeredness...but who wants to talk about that...we might go from preaching to meddling.

Then last week I saw the following on Facebook, " If we don't teach our children to follow Christ, the world will teach them not to."

That statement struck me because our church was in the midst of Vacation Bible School when little children attending our church or little children in the neighborhood or community come to our church to learn about Christ's love for them.

Lots of young children participate in VBS

Today in our worship service we saw those little children sing, dance and clap their hands as they celebrated not only Vacation Bible School, but also that they are the Lord's children.

I'm only guessing, but there may have been some adults sitting in the pews today who thought, "Why are these little kids taking up our church service...where's our sermon?"

My answer would be, "those kids are your sermon." That's how we should feel in the presence of the Lord, like those uninhibited children whom the Holy Spirit has filled with love for God.

And then I was reminded that "God can use anybody." Even the little children.

On my drive home from church, I was thinking about the two wonderful young ladies that our sons have picked for their wives. Both of them are God-centered. Then I thought about my wife and my own mom and Belinda's mom. All led faith-centered lives. God can use all of us to further his kingdom.

God is good. And God is alive. Amen.