Patience is one of those attributes that you cannot learn by reading about it. It's a quality that can only be acquired by persistent, enduring, practice. And for me, it's a drill I go over and over again!
The original Webster's dictionary offers this definition of patience: "the suffering of afflictions, pain, toil, calamity, provocation or other evil, with a calm, unruffled temper; endurance without murmuring or fretfulness, from a kind of heroic pride, or from a Christian submission to the divine will."
Reading this definition, two things really struck me. First, "endurance without murmuring."
I get so frustrated sitting in a traffic jam, counting the wasted minutes when I could have been doing something useful! Yet, what an opportunity for me to choose to quench the inner fumes---and use the delay to work on my patience!
The second thing that really hit me was, "a Christian submission to the divine will." How many times are we placed in a difficult position, or forced to deal with an "impossible" situation? Or perhaps, an "impossible" person?
These circumstances are always opportunities to grow in patience---or to learn to submit to God's providential will, and often, to minister in some special or unique way...