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"Don't Pray for Patience" and Why That's Not Good Advice

Ever heard someone say "Don't pray for patience" or talk about how someone prayed for patience and then endured some terrible experience like cancer that won't go into remission for several months/years or a period of infertility that seemed to go on forever.
Now, in a sense I understand why people say this: praying for patience means that sometimes God allows you to experience life circumstances that will frustrate you but ultimately build you into a more patient person. But I hate that people always say "don't pray for patience".
First, it makes us seem like we can control the circumstances that God sends our way. That's in no way the case. In Isaiah 55:8-9 God says, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (ESV). We cannot understand what circumstances we need to become the person God wants us to be. God can, and if He wants us to grow in patience to do work for the kingdom, He'll send us patience inducing circumstances whether we ask him or not.
However, just because God can allow hard circumstances to come our way doesn't mean that he does that to punish us. God wants what's best for us. In Matthew 7:9-11 Jesus says Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (ESV)

So, to wrap up, the reason we should stop telling people not to pray for patience is because it makes us seem to have control over the God who controls the winds and waves (Matthew 8:23-27) and characterizes God as someone who wants to punish us by sending negative circumstances into our lives. No one wants to love someone looking for a loophole reason in their prayer to send bad things, so why should we talk like that's what God does when we pray for patience?
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