Excerpt from Inspirations for Relationships by Jacqueline Peart   Taken from the introduction to the chapter Relationships With Others   No matter who we are or where we are from, we all desire and need to be in relationship with others. That's how God created us. We are at our most effective, purposeful and fulfilled when we are in true fellowship with each other no man is an island.
I have learnt, and am learning, that it's not always about the other person or people. More often than not, when I begin to struggle with other people, God is trying to get me to look at something in me. At the moment of writing this insert God has begun dealing with me about patience and doing things less hurriedly. I'm one of those people who gets irritated standing in a queue when the person in front is too slow, or driving behind the person in the fast lane who should really be in the slow lane. When I've expended energy getting irritated, what does it benefit me? What did it add to my life or my day? A few extra grey hairs or two or three extra minutes maybe!
Why am I telling you this? Because I would have all manner of things to say about why these people were slow, why they didn't do this or do that! I have in the past often reeled out my explanations about why I was right or all right, when really, I wasn't all right and needed to take a “chill pill”. Blaming others for my own impatience is neither fair nor helpful to my progression and growth. So after taking advice from John Ortberg's The Life You've Always Wanted, which, incidentally, describes this behaviour as “hurry sickness”, I'm training myself to wait in the longest queues, and pray for those seemingly “slow” people rather than become frustrated by them.
As you read, think about where you are in relation to others. Do you have to make any attitude or behavioural adjustments? Are there certain situations in which you find yourself irritated or dissatisfied with others? What might God be trying to teach or mature in you?