Don’t ask God for more patience. Or more love.

I used to ask God for more love, for joy, faith, patience, grace and all those good things. I don’t anymore. I have come to realize that as a believer and disciple of Jesus Christ, I have more than enough love, joy, faith, wisdom, patience, grace and all those other fruits of the Spirit. I have been filled. There is enough already within me for every single situation that I’ll ever face.

I Corinthians 3:16 Don’t you know that your body is the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells within you?

Ezekiel 36:27 I [God] will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statues; you will keep my judgements and do them.

As a disciple of Jesus, I have been filled with the Spirit. God dwells within me. He is perfection within me. In Him encompasses the fullness of the Godhead.

For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority. 12 You were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead. 13b God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. Colossians 2:9-13

Did you get that? ‘You are complete through your union with Christ.’ Instead of praying for more, (because I already have all I’ll ever need) I ask “God, bring more circumstances my way in which I can practice joy. Give me opportunities in which I can practice love, grace, kindness.”
This is much scarier than glibly saying “God give me joy. Give me patience.”
Am I lacking in faith? I must practice it. We have absolutely all we ever need, folks! We just gotta exercise and strengthen it.

I know a bit about exercising and strengthening muscles. I’ve been doing CrossFit for a year now. I don’t have any more muscle groups now than when I started. No, I had every single muscle I ever needed. But as I worked and sweated and grunted, these muscles began to bulk up. Some of these muscle groups that I didn’t even know I had, started to grow and get strong. Whereas before CrossFit I couldn’t even see the evidence of specific muscles, now they have thickened and I can actually see their evidence!

Stop asking God for more muscles. You don’t need more. They’re already there.
Get out there and exercise what you have! Strengthen and enlarge them. And as you work and sweat and fail sometimes, these muscles of faith, joy, love, wisdom, patience and thankfulness will begin to bulk up. They’ll get stronger, firmer. And trust me, their evidence will be obvious.

2 Peter 1:3-9 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, (getting stronger) they will keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind; having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.

Now read those verses again.

There you have it! Muscles that may be very small and weak now, once you begin to vigorously exercise them, they’ll get stronger. Bulk up as much as you can in these spiritual muscles. You’ll be walking around like a spiritual Hercules soon!

Welcome the opportunities to practice patience. Welcome the things that mess your schedule up. Welcome the daily trials you face, because… You are growing muscle!
Stop asking God for more of this or that attribute; you already have all you’ll ever need. Just start using it.