Patient Trust in Ourselves and 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.
Do not try to force them as though you could be today
What time (that is to say grace and circumstances
Acting on your own good will)
Will make you tomorrow.
Only God can say what this new Spirit
Gradually forming within 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
