Episode 114: Unpopular Opinion: Pray for Patience

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Every time I’m at church and someone makes the comment “never pray for patience,” I get a little sad on the inside. Well not really, but it does make me think they must not truly understand what they are missing by having that thought process. 

I'm not necessarily concerned that people aren't praying for patience. I'm concerned because of what that belief represents in their lives that can create more problems. That belief represents other beliefs that can be detrimental to your growth and progress. Which is what I want to discuss with you today. There are 3 underlying beliefs that may be holding you back from praying for patience and ultimately gaining the growth and progress your Heavenly Parents want for you. 

The first reason you might think praying for patience is a bad idea is because you have the belief that you shouldn’t have problems. When I hear people make the comment “don’t pray for patience,” it is often followed by, “you don’t know what problems you will bring into your life.”

This thought shows that you have the belief that you can somehow stop problems from occurring in your life. Well of course you can prevent certain problems by making healthy choices, but there isn’t a point in your life where you will not have problems. I love this quote from Elder Evan A. Schmutz of the Seventy that confirms this idea. He said,

“Jesus did not speak of the possibility of rain and flood and wind in our lives; He spoke of the certainty that storms will arise. The variable in this parable is not whether storms will come but how we have responded to His loving invitation to both hear and do what He has taught. There is no other way to survive.”

I love that he points out that rains, floods and winds aren’t possibilities, they are certainties in our lives. We live in a fallen world, with fallen bodies where people are allowed to use their agency unrighteously. WE ARE GOING TO HAVE PROBLEMS. There is not a shortage of problems in this world that we did not cause of our own doing and there is no avoiding problems.

Having that belief often leads to the second belief which is having a victim mentality. The mentality that you are a victim is when you blame others for the way your life is. ‌You truly think life is against you. ‌So if you start believing you shouldn’t have problems but you live in a world where problems exist on every corner without you choosing them, then you might start thinking that someone or something is out to get you. You look for someone or something to blame for the problem which often leads people to blame God for their problems.

Having this type of mentality and choosing to blame someone or something else for your problems only leads to you having trouble coping and feeling powerless against them. ‌You will start to feel stuck and approach life with a negative attitude. All of these effects of a victim mentality ultimately distance you from God. If you believe God is the culprit for your misery, you will not want to invite Him into your life anymore. 

Remember, God is not up there striking down problem after problem into your life. God designed the plan of salvation to have a period of time in our lives where we would have to experience opposition in order to grow. We are in a time period where this world will give us problems because it naturally has opposition or we will cause our own problems with our choices. God is there to help us grow from these problems and progress into the people He knows we can become. Only if we choose to allow Him to help us with our problems. 

If you persist in the victim mentality and allow it to grow then you will likely develop the last belief about problems which is you must be doing something wrong if you have problems. This default approach can lead to you to thinking that if problems are bad then it means you did something bad or wrong which makes YOU bad or wrong. This is a common thought spiral that happens for women. This meaning often comes back to, “I must be the cause”. 

There is a lot of danger in going down this spiral of thinking you are bad or wrong. This belief can spill out into other areas of your life and cause you to withdraw and isolate yourself from so many wonderful people, situations and opportunities. 

The other day when I was listening to a podcast I heard this quote and absolutely loved it and thought it fit with this belief right here. Now a little warning. I normally quote prophets and apostles to support my ideas but this one was too good to pass up. So today, I am choosing to quote Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean. He said,

 “The problem with the problem isn’t the problem. The problem with the problem is your attitude about the problem.”

The reason I loved it was because it isn’t really about the problem, it’s about your belief about the problem. Remember what I said in the beginning, it is what that belief represents in their lives that can create more problems. That belief represents other beliefs that can be detrimental to your growth and progress. Having these beliefs can create a distance from God and an inability to give you wonderful power and gifts in your life.

Having the opinion that you should be praying for patience is actually thinking in a higher and holier way. When you begin to pray for patience, you bring into your life the power to handle situations instead of situations handling you. You are taking the offensive approach in declaring that you have access to a source, God, who can help you navigate this problem.

When you take this offensive approach you start to change from “Why is this happening to me?” vs. “What am I not seeing yet?", "What do I need to pay attention to?", or "What am I missing?” You look for those opportunities to see where you can grow and progress. 

When you pray for patience you also gain access to Christ’s enabling power. His atonement was not only for your sins but for the burdens placed on your shoulders from living in a fallen world. When you pray for patience you step into the yoke with Him and you shoulder this problem together. Without praying and asking, you can’t step into that yoke because you must use your agency to ask for His help. 

Then finally, when you believe that praying for patience is helpful in your life you will start to have more confidence to handle future problems. You start to see the power it brings into your life. You begin to grow in faith and trust with God for any problem that comes your way. You feel His confidence to handle these problems and stress begins to dissipate in your life. 

If you have related with any of those beliefs about problems, you may need some tools to help with those beliefs. Those types of beliefs don’t just go away by recognizing them. Often they have been used frequently and have taken root inside. One of the ways I suggest clearing out the roots of those belief systems is to learn mental health skills through a spiritual lens. 

In fact, these are the exact tools I teach in my Removing Roadblocks to Revelation Group Coaching Program. When you join us for this program you can learn to remove your internal battles that are blocking the personal revelation you need for the trial.

You learn 4 types of mental health skills through a spiritual lens so you can receive HOURS back in TIME, ENERGY, HELP and PEACE beyond your own. I am a little under a month away from opening up the program. If you want to be notified when the program opens get on the waitlist today!