Encouragement for Today
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June 16, 2025 If You Feel Impatient With Yourself Today, Read This Lee en español |
“Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people.” Luke 2:52 (NLT)
Last week, I said something to a friend that I regretted.
My words came out in an entirely different way than I intended. The day ended with a general sense of feeling tired of myself. I was irritated … by me. Bothered that I’m still where I’m at.
Have you ever felt tired of yourself? Maybe you feel exhausted that you’re still wrestling with the same issues. Shouldn’t I be past this by now? You feel impatient with the slow process of your own healing. I’m behind where I should be or want to be. Or maybe you feel defeated by the sin you’re still overcoming. Can God come with an eraser and make it go away? But God hasn’t.
Impatience is like a storm in the body and mind. You can feel it in your gut, in your jaw, or in an overall sense of restlessness and agitation. You can hear it in your thoughts and in that tight, wound-up place in your soul.
I was expressing my frustration to a mentor recently, and she leaned in and said something that has stayed with me: “Be where you’re at … and it’s OK. Trust that God is peeling back the layers.”
Be where you’re at … and it’s OK.
In Luke 2:25, the Gospel writer recounts that “Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people.”
Jesus grew.
If God Himself took on human form — without sin — and chose not to bypass His development, how much more can we release the urgency to skip over our own growth? In choosing to live the fullness of the human experience, Jesus consented to be where He was in every season. At every age.
What if our impatience could invite our hearts to open? If we can pause and be with our emotions without judgment, we may feel the vulnerability, fear, and longing that often lie beneath impatience.
We are human. Our hearts heal slowly. We find God not by erasing our growth journeys but by embracing them.
Consenting to be where we really are is how we become who God created us to be.
While there is no “hack” for sanctifying the human soul, there is important work we are each invited into today. We have a thousand small moments to accept the slow work of God in our lives. It’s by sinking our roots deep into the here and now that true transformation happens. This is the work of allowing our souls to grow up.
So what might it look like to be where you’re at today, joining God in bringing compassion to wherever you might find yourself? He sees you. He knows exactly where you’re at. And His heart toward you is kind.
Dear God, help me to be present to myself and to You so that I can open the gift of this moment. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
OUR FAVORITE THINGS
Taylor Joy Murray’s book, Stop Saying I’m Fine: Finding Stillness When Anxiety Screams, blends therapeutic insight with spiritual truth to help you dig beneath the surface of your anxiety. If you want to better understand where your anxiety comes from and why, and if you long to learn a different, more compassionate approach to engaging with your anxiety, this book is for you.
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Click here for a free download of a prayer to pray when you feel impatient with yourself.
FOR DEEPER STUDY
Matthew 9:36, “Seeing the crowds, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast, like sheep without a shepherd” (NASB).
Take a moment and imagine Christ’s eyes as He looked toward the distressed and downcast. How does this description of His compassionate gaze shift the way you see yourself today?
We’d love to hear from you! Share your thoughts in the comments.
© 2025 by Taylor Joy Murray. All rights reserved.
Proverbs 31 Ministries
P.O. Box 3189
Matthews, NC 28106
www.Proverbs31.org