Has God ever been so annoyingly clear to you? I say this reverently. The reason it’s annoying is because He’s been telling you this. You’ve heard but you didn’t want to hear. So sometimes you even ran away from what He was saying.
I’m in a community where a poem was posted. I’d never heard of the poem before, but I read the title and decided, “I’m not reading that. I don’t want to hear, that.” Especially that day. I was not having a good day, and the title seemed to serve as rubbing salt in a wound. So I only read the host’s introduction and then closed the page. I would not read the poem. By now, you’re probably wondering, what kind of poem was this? All I read was the title, which is “Patient Trust,” and I knew two things for sure.
- I was out of patience so didn’t want to hear about it
- I was questioning what I had been trusting in.
So I closed the page and went on with my day. Then two days later, I was at an event, and as part of the closing session our leader handed out copies of the very same poem I had bolted from two days earlier. Then she asked us to read it out loud together. I could have just walked out, but that would have been rude. So here I was, morphed into Jonah, and God was like, “It’s all good. I’ll just have the whale spit you up on the shores of the place you’re running away from.”
I sat on the proverbial beach in the whale’s vomit confronted with God’s message to me, Patient Trust. Like a petulant child, I was tempted to stomp my feet and roll around on the ground, but I decided to lean into the moment and listen to what He wanted me to know.
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.
— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955)
Making the choice to listen didn’t make the message any more palatable. I still did not like the message. Some parts I really did not like were as follows:
“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.”
- When we’re in a place of instability for a very long time, it can take its toll on us despite our very best efforts not to tumble down the rabbit hole.
“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.”
- In our cultural context, the messages we are bombarded with are being self made and pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps (whether we have boots or not 🙄) so to hear that my hard work, effort and goodwill won’t get me where I want when I want. That’s a hard pill to swallow.
“…accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.”
- Another oxymoron in our culture. Is it possible to accept being suspended and incomplete in a culture that values assuredness, stability and completion?
But the most comforting thing about reading this poem together in community was hearing how it impacted other people. We shared a similar discomfort with some lines and words. After hearing everyone’s comments on it, I concluded we were all struggling with the same thing: a lack of patience and questioning what we were trusting in. While our faith and trust in God remained solid, what became clear was that we were trusting more in ourselves and abilities than in God. A humbling realization indeed.
Dear friends, don’t overlook this one fact: With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance. – 1 Peter 3:8-9 CSB
I don’t go to these verses often, and when I do, I wrestle with them because I love that the Lord is patient with me, but I’m not always patient with Him.
Going Deeper
Friend, if you’re feeling the prompting to go deeper on this subject, I’ve created some journal prompts for you. Click here to download.
Until next week …
Miracles + Blessings!
Brenda
P.S. Did a friend send this email to you? (what an awesome friend 🙌🏿)
If so, click here to subscribe.
0 Comments