Our world is becoming more and more addicted to instant gratification. Walmart, Target and Amazon compete for who can deliver their products in the shortest time frame. Though I am no stranger to hurry and a desire for instant gratification, it helps me to think back on how God has worked in my life in ways that took a really long time. It took many years to find my spouse, many years to complete my schooling, many years to develop a spiritual practice in my life. When I sit still and breathe deeply, I am keenly aware that God is working, even if it feels slow in comparison to the world’s timeline. I found this work by one of the mystics to speak to my certainty that even if it isn’t on my timeline, God is surely working and I can trust that truth.
Trust in the Slow Work of God
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, S.J. (1881-1955)
