godliness as patience

I was speaking to Kutz the other night.  He was telling me how he sees sin as the distortion of a desire which was originally good. So if he feels tempted, he thinks about the particular temptation and tries to discern how, pre-fall, that desire would have been expressed.  He looks backwards.

I do a similar thing, but look forwards.  All of the desires that I feel now are in some way a longing for the new creation.  So when I'm tempted to sin (which is usually about half a second before I'm in the thick of sin) I think about what it is that I really want.  What part of the new creation am I particularly hanging out for at that moment? 

Patience, then, is the virtue I need to cultivate.  I will get what I want, and get it in a much more magnificent form than I can imagine.  But not yet.  I need to wait. 

Just a few short years.