"When will my life begin?"

Ask me if I'm a patient person. 

No. The answer is often no. 

I just hide it well.

Lately it seems that I've been waiting. Waiting and waiting while everyone else around me seems to have things fall into their laps. And again, here I am, waiting. I'm almost (if not already) at the point where I'm sick of waiting. 

I think of that song in Tangled called "When will my life begin," and wonder the same thing for myself these days. When will I settle into a stable career? When will I meet 'the one'? When will I be able to buy a house? When will I be able to drive standard exceptionally well? The questions could go on forever. 

This is the point where you'll all yell at your screens quoting James 1, Isaiah 40:31, or Galatians 5:22 or shout the words "Perseverance!", "Patience is a virtue!", "Good things come to those who wait!" "Focus on the here and now!!" or "JUST Trust God!!11!11". Classic. 

To toot my own horn, having graduated from Sport/Performance Psychology, I get everything that's wrong with thinking about the "whens". If I'm being pained about the future, then I'm not focusing on the now; I'm not fully appreciating all the good that God is doing for me right here and right now, nor am I appreciating who God is and how good He is even now. How very true. But that doesn't stop me from feeling this irksome impatience every now and again, such that I feel antsy and hungering to move on to the next thing ASAP. 

So what? Why complain while I have the answers in hand? Simple solution: just find your joy in the Lord! Appreciate God and enjoy Him! 

Simply said, but not so simply done, or understood. 

For someone like me who has a mind that is constantly ticking, constantly picking things apart, and reading into every detail, and examining things as thoroughly as I possibly can, a restful mind is hard to maintain. I am a prime illustration of the danger of self-awareness, when it comes to faith. It is not bad to be self-examining, and to know yourself, but self-awareness can also produce turmoil. If you want to start learning to "find your Joy in the Lord," and "To wait upon the Lord,", self-awareness must take second place to Christ-awareness. 

In my view, the band-aid answer to my problem will tell me to stop and smell God's roses; appreciate God and count your blessings (though we do need to practice this regularly). An in-depth examination of the deeper rooted issue would say the lasting solution is that we must ask for Christ-awareness. Out of that, stems a heart yearning to worship and focus on God, a heart yielded to Him and desperate to praise Him in the midst of our impatiences, and struggles in the wait. 

Christ-awareness is a Christ centered perspective. Someone who holds that oneness with Christ is constantly reliant on Him, and seeking His perspective and desires. If I am impatient in the waiting, it is only because things are not going my way. My impatience and anxiety are not because I am actually trapped and holed up waiting like Rapunzel, but that I am discontent with how God is carrying out His plans. 

The right perspective changes everything. A Christ-aware Christian is one who is conscious of the life of Christ in him/her, and desires to be united to this life, and to live it out in full unity, no matter the cost.

Psalm 37 describes the actions and attitude of one in waiting; it describes the Godly perspective of those who wait upon the Lord. 

"Trust in the Lord and do good;
    dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
 Take delight in the Lord,
    and he will give you the desires of your heart.

 Commit your way to the Lord;
    trust in him and he will do this:
 He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn,
    your vindication like the noonday sun." (Psalm 37:3-6)

Patience in the waiting is a fruit produced out of the submission to the Spirit of God in you; patience is grown through accepting, trusting and following through with the desires of God and His planning. There is training to be done in the waiting.