The Christian life is one of continual change

Sometimes God works on just one area of our life for several weeks or even months. It takes time to change ingrained character traits, habits, attitudes. Bad old habits are not suddenly eradicated and good new habits are not formed in one day. God teaches us new and good things through his word and people. He uses word to bring to our attention the particular area we need to change in (patience for instance); and he uses people or situations by putting us into their company to test and refine us (ie. annoying people and frustrating situations so as to test our patience).