Patient Trust

I have found myself so frustrated with many new beginnings in several areas of my life. While God is working and moving, my achiever personality wants to be complete with the task at hand. Naturally, I don't always enjoy the "process". I read the excerpt below in Pete Scazzero's Daily Offices: Remembering God's Presence Throughout the Day this morning. These words were a gift from God ... another layer revealed in my struggle to grow in grace as I long to be more like Him and understand me a bit more. I am recognizing how necessary it is to celebrate the growth up until today instead of continually pushing ahead to "force" more growth somehow. Impatience in the process and desire to control was a new connection to me. Very grateful for His patience with me while I seek His presence in my incomplete place.

Scripture Reading: Genesis 12:1-3

Devotional

The image of the Christian life as a journey captures our experience of following Christ like few others. Journeys involve movement, action, stops and starts, detours, delays, and trips into the unknown. God called Abraham to leave his comfortable life in Ur at the age of seventy-five and to embark on a long, slow journey; a journey with God that would require much patient trust.

Patient Trust

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.

by Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

Question to Ponder: What does it mean for you to trust in the slow work of God today?

Prayer: Grant me courage, Father, to embark on the unique journey you have crafted for me. By faith, I surrender my need and desire to be in control of every event, circumstance, person I will meet today. In Jesus' name, amen.