Wisdom-Trek / Creating a LegacyWelcome to Day 1313 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to WisdomDon't Rush God – Ask Gramps

Wisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1313 of our Trek and time for our Philosophy Friday series. Each Friday, we will ponder some of the basic truths and mysteries of life, and how they can impact us in creating our living legacy. As we continue on this trek called life, sometimes we have questions about life, so our Friday trek is a time where we can ‘Ask Gramps.’ Gramps will answer questions that you would like to ask your dad or granddad, but for whatever reason, this is not possible. No matter how old we are, I know that all of us would like the opportunity to ask dad or gramps questions about life in many areas.

We may mix it up a bit on our Friday episodes, but will strive to keep them down to earth and enjoyable. If you have any questions that you would like to ask Gramps, please email them to [email protected]

So the question for this week is:

“Hey Gramps, I know I need to be more patient in life, but I find myself wanting to rush ahead. This habit also impacts my spiritual growth. I want to be spiritual, but I want it now, without having to go through the discipline I know in my heart is needed. Can you share some wise advice to help to stay focused on what is most important?

Don’t Rush GodIn our western cultures, and actually throughout the world, we have become so accustomed to having most of our desires fulfilled instantly. Most of us use a lot of "instant" things. Instant messaging. Instant coffee. Instant rice. Instant access. Instant results, instant meals at drive-throughs. You get my drift, right? I suppose I am as bad as many people and worse than many about the desire for quick outcomes. Although, as I age, I am learning to be a bit more patient with others and all of life.

While we may try to defend the value of quick turnaround in many settings, I think it serves us poorly for the most part. It caters to our impatience. In fact, I would say it serves to magnify impatience. Not every destination can be reached by a shortcut, and by attempting to, we fall prey to compromising our values, ethics, and standing before God.

Nearly everyone wants to have a good reputation. Even in our pursuit of a good reputation, if we are impatient, it can lead to the shortcut path of doing a good thing for the wrong reason. That is to say, we support situational ethics, or the ends justifies the means. We may do something just to get noticed. Such as conspicuously giving a sizable gift at church or some other charitable organization. In other words, being conspicuous with a gift for the sake of being honored. Building character as the foundation for a good reputation is a slow process that takes place over time and without calling attention to oneself. It can take an entire lifetime to build and can be destroyed easily by impatient decisions.

Unfortunately, Christ-followers, and even Christian ministries can be the worst offenders of all. We have been given important kingdom-building tasks to accomplish in this world. Just as Rome wasn’t built overnight, neither is God’s kingdom. We have a mission from Jesus himself to tell everybody the good news of God's love. For many churches, this seems to translate to filling up our church buildings and making a splash in our communities. So we get loud, bully our own members, and elbow our way into the consciousness of people who've made it clear they aren't that interested in what we are doing.Both...