I’m ashamed of myself as I know
better. Wishing everything around me to just hurry up. For the past three weeks, I’ve found myself
thinking, ‘I wish it would hurry up and stop raining! I need to get some fertilizer down. How much longer before the
cabbage will make head? If it doesn’t form soon, there won’t be table fresh
when the family gets here. Come on Dahlias,
hurry up and set those buds. These weeds are in a hurry to pop up again, and I
can’t let them get ahead of me.’
Bettyann just mentioned that I need to hurry and spray the ant mound
that is begging to form in her garden. I’m recognizing that it’s not “that other
type of hurry,” that I’ve experienced for years and seemed to have conquered for
the most part—rushing to get into the ten items or less lane at the grocery
store, speeding through traffic, or running around juggling four or five tasks
at a time. It’s more of an inability to be present to my life as it is right
now. So often I find that no matter the circumstances, I’m hurrying through
them, wondering or worrying what is next.
Giving it genuine thought, this
pattern of hurrying through my life has always been there from a young age. Not sure how young, yet recognize; “looking for
the next event,” has been fairly typical. I remember as a pre-teen, rolling up my
pant cuffs in two narrow rolls, not being able to wait to be a teenager like my
cousin, Bobby. When I was a teenager, I
couldn’t wait to be in college. When I was in college, I couldn’t wait to be a preacher.
When I was a preacher, I couldn’t wait to be a pastor. I look back on those
hurried days now and lament that I rushed through them so quickly.
Of course, my efficiency-driven surroundings
have never helped my propensity towards hurrying through, over half my life. It
was my first realization that most folks in my world community, lived the same
way when I began taking a few, annual, personal retreats at a cloistered monastery.
I’ve thought about it before but
recognize again; as hard as I’ve tried and still trying, I’ve been unable to escape,
even to the suburbs of this “instant” society. These increasingly rapid
technological developments only add to impatience when things are not achieved
instantaneously. I admit that while technology has greatly improved many
aspects of my life and I certainly wouldn’t want to go backwards, I recognize
that my own propensity to hurry, coupled with a community that moves at
ever-quickening speeds, has been, at various time, very detrimental for any
kind of reflective life. How often have I found myself disappointed when my
prayers have not been answered instantly? How angry I’ve become when the
smallest glitch slows my achievement of personal goals. At times, I discover,
instantly and sometimes long after the fact, how frustrated and impatient I became
with others when their own “improvement” doesn’t move at my break-neck
speed.
The lives depicted in the Bible
couldn’t be more different from my hurried life. More importantly, to my chagrin,
and great frustration, the God revealed in the biblical stories is rarely in a
hurry. Abraham and Sarah, for example, received the promise of an heir
twenty-five years before they actually laid eyes on Isaac. Joseph had a dream
as a seventeen-year-old young man that his brothers would one day bow down to
him. Yet it was countless years and many difficulties later that his brothers
would come and kneel before him, asking for food. Moses was eighty years old, long
past his prime of life, when God appeared to him in the burning bush and called
him to deliver the children of Israel. David was anointed king by Samuel as a
young boy tending his father’s flocks, long before he finally ascended to the
throne. And Jesus spent thirty years in relative obscurity, and only three
years in publically announcing the kingdom and God’s rule that had come in His
life and ministry.
There are times when I contemplate,
as to the reason for God not hurrying in accomplishing the plans for these
individual lives as a part of the larger narrative of redemption. Am I
revealing a symptom of a lack of trust? It’s kind-of like the Messiah being
prophesied hundreds of years before He actually arrived on the scene. I just
can’t help but ask why God seems to move so slowly?
Do I dare consider myself along with
Peter? It was in his second letter, what
is considered his last will and testament, that he discusses the slowness of
God in relation to the second coming of Christ. Many arose even in Peter’s time
asking why God was so slow when it came to delivering on his promise of an
eternal kingdom. They began to mock God assuming that “as it was in the
beginning is now and ever shall be.” Not so, he argues in that second letter,
third chapter from verse nine thru fifteen: “The Lord is not slow about his
promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any
to perish but for all to come to repentance… Therefore, beloved, since you look
for these things, be diligent to be found by him in peace, spotless and
blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord to be salvation.”
I’m discovering this seemingly long, season's experience, of not breaking through, struggle,
slow growth which eventually always turns towards sitting at the table or enjoying the blooms has always been
arduous for me. Because my makeup is one of constantly racing towards what’s
next.
Father, God, thank You for creating
me, me! Thank You for giving me insight
into Your great forbearance and patience with me, even as they hearken to me to
enter the wild spaces of wilderness waiting with Jesus. Thank You for the insight
during these days to intentionally slow down, creating liminal space—making
room for me who’s tendency it is to rush to wait and rest in the “in-between”
and the “not yet” for You to act. I understand from many witnesses of older
generations that waiting for You in this liminal (new word) space will certainly
provide more opportunity to be patient, “looking” as Peter says, at the
“patience of our Lord to be salvation.” Amen
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