Today I finished a week studying patience as a fruit of the Spirit. I joked (sort of) with Tim beforehand that I was looking forward to the "answer." It's really fascinating how much impatience Latin America has revealed in me. Everywhere I go, there is waiting.

In the video I watched today, Beth Moore mentioned that our culture is teaching us impatience at a time when we desperately need patience. In that moment it occurred to me that Peru is an exception to that generalization. Beth said, "We don't even know what waiting means." Oh, believe me, I know. 9 hours in the cell phone store, for example. I began to see today that the Lord is using this culture to teach me the very thing I am lacking. No, the process isn't easy, but I have plenty of chances to practice. As she mentioned, "Convenience never produces character."

I started to see this afternoon that it is the very frustrations of this culture that afford me opportunities to put on the character of God in place of my natural self. Here He is healing me. As I wait, I learn patience; as I am forced to surrender control, I lose also my anxieties; as the superficial comforts I depend on are stripped away, so fade my melancholy dips. As I hang on in the midst of conflict, He is effecting change in my very personality.

Galatians 5 describes life in the Spirit- love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control. Take away the anesthetizing familiarity of the verse and there remains a fullness and freedom that God has and I want. Lord, reveal yourself in me. Be it through trials or not, I am eager to know what it means to live in the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

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