Leaning into progress on the path to patience

Learning Patience

Patient Trust

—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

excerpted from Hearts on Fire

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.

And yet it is the law of all progress

that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—

and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;

your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,

let them shape themselves, without undue haste.

Don’t try to force them on,

as though you could be today what time

(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)

will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be.

Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you,

and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

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This poem completely sums up what I am currently feeling. I briefly get glimpses of some of the puzzle pieces God is working within me but I get impatient to see the whole puzzle, finished and complete. God is teaching me that it is in the process, where the work is being done, that is when the most growth happens. I want my maturing as a Christian to be super easy and especially convenient but of course, no where in the natural world does maturing happen like that. As they say 'it is the journey, not the destination'. However I am generally not a patient person, mostly because I hate the uncomfortable feeling of waiting.

When I read the Bible I tend to focus on the great acts of faith of Noah, Abraham, all the prophets, David and his blogging in the Psalms, and the disciples but, if I read these stories with intention and looking at the themes of their stories, I can see mine mirrored there too. They have moments of brilliance, but mostly their stories reflect the ups and downs I experience. Like little children learning to walk, they also fall down and get back up. There is however an echo in their stories that starts with Adam... "they walked with God", so that is the image I am holding on to today. The picture of my Father taking this child's hand in His as He patiently walks next to her, helping her up when she falls, as He leads her back home.

So maybe, just maybe, all my imperfect steps and all the muddled puzzle pieces are part of a beautiful picture God is busy building, and I only need to yield to HIs love for me and believe He has good intentions for me, as He puts it all together. Then my whispered prayer to His diligent work is "may my picture reflect Your Face and Your Glory."

How is God encouraging you today as He leads you home?