I Prayed for Patience. Then I Grew Cannabis.

I have learned that asking God for patience is apparently one of those prayers you should be very careful with.

Because sometimes He does not hand you patience.

Sometimes He hands you a seed.

And if you have ever grown cannabis, you already know where this is going.

You plant it, stare at the soil like that is somehow going to make it sprout faster and then begin a months-long relationship with waiting.

You wait for the seedling. You wait for roots. You wait for new growth. You wait for the plant to get big enough to train. You wait through veg. You flip to flower and then somehow discover that eight weeks can feel like eight years.

Then, when the plant finally looks finished, you learn that it is not finished.

Now you have to dry it.

Then cure it.

Apparently growing cannabis is less a hobby and more an elaborate lesson in being told, “Not yet.”

I am not naturally good at “not yet”

I like progress I can see. I like problems I can solve. I like knowing that if I do the right thing today, I will get the result I want tomorrow.

Plants do not care about any of that.

You can give them light, water, nutrients and a good environment, but you still cannot negotiate with Tuesday and make it become Friday.

You cannot yell at a flower to ripen faster. You cannot explain to a seedling that you have plans. You cannot rush roots without risking damage.

There is a rhythm to growth that does not change just because I am impatient.

That has been unexpectedly humbling.

Because I realize how often I approach other parts of life the same way. I want clarity now. Healing now. Answers now. I want to know whether the thing I am working toward is actually going to work before I invest any more time in it.

And faith rarely works like that.

Growth is happening before it looks impressive

One of the strangest parts of growing is how much important work happens when there is not much to look at.

A seed cracks open under the soil. Roots stretch into places you cannot see. A plant spends weeks building structure before there is anything resembling the harvest you had in mind.

If you judged the whole process too early, you might think nothing important was happening.

I think I do that with myself too.

I look for dramatic proof that I am growing. I want some clear moment where I can say, “There. That is what changed.” But a lot of growth is quieter than that.

Maybe I recover from a bad day a little faster than I used to. Maybe I apologize sooner. Maybe I recognize when I need to step away instead of forcing myself through something. Maybe I ask for help before I am completely overwhelmed.

None of that makes for a dramatic before-and-after picture.

It still counts.

Jesus talked about seeds more than once when He described the kingdom of God. In Mark 4, He describes a person scattering seed and then sleeping and rising while the seed sprouts and grows, even though the person does not fully understand how.

I love that image because it leaves room for something I am not especially good at: letting growth happen without constantly pulling it apart to check whether it is working.

You can care deeply without controlling everything

Growing has also taught me there is a difference between being responsible for something and being in control of it.

I am responsible for the environment. I can check the water. I can watch the temperature. I can pay attention to the plant and respond when something looks wrong.

But I do not make the plant grow.

I participate in the process.

That distinction has started showing up in other parts of my life too.

I can care about my family without being able to fix every problem they face. I can work hard on Mercy Leaf without controlling how every person responds to it. I can pray about something without deciding exactly how God is supposed to answer.

There is effort that belongs to me and there is outcome that does not.

Sometimes patience is learning the difference.

The funny part is that rushing usually makes things worse

Most growers learn this eventually, usually after doing something they absolutely knew they should not do.

Too much water because the plant looked thirsty.

Too much fertilizer because more nutrients must mean more growth.

Harvesting early because the buds looked close enough.

Opening the drying space every twenty minutes because surely that helps somehow.

Impatience has a remarkable ability to disguise itself as helpfulness.

I have done the same thing in life.

I have tried to force conversations before people were ready. I have worried a problem until I convinced myself I was working on it. I have mistaken constant activity for progress.

Sometimes the wisest thing I can do is tend what is mine to tend and leave the rest alone for a while.

That is harder than it sounds.

Maybe patience is not doing nothing

I used to think patience meant sitting around waiting for something to happen.

Growing has changed that for me.

Patience can be incredibly active.

You still show up. You still pay attention. You still make adjustments. You still do the work that today requires.

You just stop demanding that today also produce tomorrow’s result.

I think there is something deeply spiritual about that.

Do what you can today. Be faithful with what is in front of you. Give people time. Give yourself time. Pray, work, learn and keep showing up.

Then let tomorrow belong to tomorrow.

So yes, I prayed for patience

And apparently God has a sense of humor.

I expected some kind of peaceful spiritual lesson.

Instead, I ended up staring at trichomes under magnification and telling myself for the fiftieth time, “A few more days.”

But maybe that is the lesson.

Patience is not something I learn once and then possess forever. It gets practiced in ordinary places.

In gardens.

In relationships.

In healing.

In unanswered prayers.

In work that matters to us.

And sometimes in a grow tent where absolutely nothing is happening as fast as I would like.

So if you ever pray for patience and find yourself wondering why life suddenly seems to involve so much waiting, I cannot prove there is a connection.

I am just saying you may want to check whether there is a seed somewhere with your name on it.