Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
Patience has never been my strong point. I can lose it easily and get irritable when things aren’t going as I had planned. Although I’m getting better it is slow, steady work. This isn’t surprising given that the work of God is mostly slow when measured against our timetables. The Divine is never rushed as we are, never in a hurry, never pushing forward towards a goal, an achievement, a prize. God is here, now in this moment, it’s where The Trinity live, utterly and completely present here, now. They give of themselves to us right here in the present, in each inhale, in each exhale, sustaining, offering, being themselves fully given to us… here… now.
We on the other hand find it hard to be here, now…present. We obsess over the past, we worry about the future whilst what is can pass us by like a beautiful river travelling alongside us that we fail to encounter. We’re often the same when it comes to our interior lives. We can become impatient to see change, healing, freedom and movement. We want to reach the end even when the end is an illusion. We want to “get through” this struggle, this place of brokenness to a place of wholeness as quickly as possible – anything to avoid the instability. We want more insight and enlightenment without taking all the steps that lead there. We often want to step into tomorrow before the dawn has come.
I want to grow in allowing myself to be where I am today, exactly as I am and to trust the slow, steady work of God to form within me whatever She wills. To surrender more deeply to what may feel shaky underfoot knowing that Christ accompanies me.
Can we trust that the path under our feet will unfold step by step in its time and that God is leading us with great wisdom, love and compassion? Can today be enough on this slow, steady journey of transformation? Can we simply give ourselves permission to be here and now and trust God with the rest? God is willing, The Divine is intimately working within the depths of our beings, creating forming, healing, freeing. Can we learn tor trust even as we feel in suspense and incomplete?
I offer you this beautiful, rich and comforting poem by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 – 1955) called Patient Trust as an invitation. You may want to read it a few times to give it time to speak to you.
Below the poem is a link to a wonderful meditation on Patient Trust by my friend and fellow Spiritual Director Rachael. I highly recommend you listening to it when you have time to be still, it can be found at the end of the accompanying blog which is also worth a read (she is a beautiful writer).
As you read these words may surrender well up from within you, may your shoulders relax and may comfort come as a gift as you remember that you are being led and that God’s love is always present…
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.