Day 18: Patience & Kindness
Thursday, February 25
READ
REFLECT
In a New York Times article titled, “Why Waiting is Torture,” author Bendik Kaltenborn explains a project undertaken by a Houston airport after passengers began complaining about waiting too long to pick up their bags at baggage claim:
“Some years ago, executives at a Houston airport faced a troubling customer-relations issue. Passengers were lodging an inordinate number of complaints about the long waits at baggage claim. In response, the executives increased the number of baggage handlers working that shift. The plan worked: the average wait fell to eight minutes, well within industry benchmarks. But the complaints persisted.
Puzzled, the airport executives undertook a more careful, on-site analysis. They found that it took passengers a minute to walk from their arrival gates to baggage claim and seven more minutes to get their bags. Roughly 88 percent of their time, in other words, was spent standing around waiting for their bags.
So the airport decide on a new approach: instead of reducing wait times, it moved the arrival gates away from the main terminal and routed bags to the outermost carousel. Passengers now had to walk six times longer to get their bags. Complaints dropped to near zero.”[1]
It seems that waiting is more about perspective than anything. When we think we are waiting too long for something, we become anxious, frustrated, disappointed, and angry because we are not in control of our circumstances. All of this centers around impatience. As a result of our impatience, we become less kind to those around us. Our food takes too long to get to our table, so we are unkind to the waiter/waitress, although it is not his/her fault. We are unkind with our work colleague because he/she is not giving us information we need to complete a task on our timetable. In short, patience and kindness go hand-in-hand.
When we are patient with others it comes from a heart of kindness. How can we express kindness if we are impatient? We learn patience through hard times. And it is in enduring those hard times that God’s patience is developed in us.
RESPOND
Spend time in prayer, following the Upward, Inward, Outward, Upward format.
Upward: Who God is; What God has done, is doing, will do
Inward: Who you are; How you live
Outward: Intercession for others; unified prayer focus with Pathway
TODAY’S PRAYER: God, remind us of the kindness you have expressed to us through the gift of grace. Thank you for being patient with us as we continually fail in trying to please you. Help us to look to your patience and kindness as we reflect that toward others. Produce in us the fruit of patience and kindness!
Upward: Thanksgiving and Worship
If you missed yesterday’s Prayer & Worship gathering, we’ve got you covered! Enjoy this recordings of the service, and worship and pray with us at a time that works for you.
Our final Prayer & Worship Gathering will be this Sunday evening, February 28, at 6PM. We’ll be taking communion to wrap up our 21 Days of Prayer & Fasting, and a headcount would be helpful for our team. RSVP for Sunday, or view recordings of previous gatherings HERE.