Dear Good Shepherd and friends,
Some of you might know that Laura and I enjoy gardening. We like the work, the process, the product. Well, as normal, it's taken two weeks for some of the seeds we've planted to
actually appear above the surface of the dirt. Two weeks. There was a while where we weren't sure if the seeds washed away in the heavy rain. But now, after two weeks and all we see is a thin, wiry, piece of green material. The weight of a fly would cause
it to buckle. Eventually, hopefully, there will be healthy, tall, broad, leafy, vegetable-bearing plants. But I'm
going to need to wait.
Nothing in gardening happens quickly. Nothing. Gardening involves putting seeds in the ground in an uncontrolled environment with too many unknown and unpredictable variables. In the old traditional way of doing it, it's terribly inefficient. And it's not immediate. It's not supposed to be. That's part of why we like doing it. Much of the work seems to be a waste of time. But it's not.
As a Spiritual discipline of sorts, I find that gardening reminds me that God moves slowly and often to our minds, inefficiently. And waiting is tough. It seems even more difficult in an instant-gratification society. And I'm not just talking about the fact that we seem to no longer have the time or patience to spend a couple hours to cook a meal at home. We always in a hurry these days. Not just busy -- busy and in a hurry. It seems we can hardly put up with slow growth or slow movement in nearly any aspect of life, from impatience in the grocery store line, to impatience in what we might expect from a business, or from employees, or from our family, or our own lives. If we don't get what we think we want out of an experience the first time, we move on. If we don't get results right away -- or the results we want right away -- we grow impatient.
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There used to be a
popular Heinz ketchup commercial that said: "The best things come to those who
wait." It isn't making the rounds any longer. Now commercials sing the quick
and now tune. And many of us in this culture receive the message as if it's the way things should be. God does
not work like this. We can't demand immediacy or even
"efficiency" from God. God is resistant to our self-made need
for immediacy and efficiency. Just like the vegetables in the garden. We have to adjust to their schedule. We are at the mercy of several unpredictable variables. And we must wait it out.
Consider the story of Abraham and Sarah in Genesis (Genesis 15-21). When God appeared to Abraham, he promised that he and Sarah would have a son. It was late in the
game -- they were both old. And after the promise was made, it still took years before Isaac was born.
Considering their old age, it seems that God wasn't moving along with explaining how this would
happen fast enough. So they decided for themselves how it would happen. Abraham
had a child with the servant Hagar as an ancient form of surrogacy. Guess what? Not what God had in mind. If they'd only
waited. But God wasn't moving quickly enough for their timeline. And time was of the essence. Even
though their impatient action led to some difficulties along the way, it did
not result in anything God couldn't work with.
God moves
slowly. And inefficiently, it seems. He didn't stop Abraham and Sarah from having a son their own way. He could have shown up and said, "Hey! Wait! Not what I was thinking." Or when God delivered the
Israelites from Egypt. It took them 40 years just to get from Egypt to the
Promised Land. More wasted time. It could have taken a few weeks. They wandered through apparently
purposeless and fruitless desert land. No straight,
efficient path to the good life of blessing. All an entire generation knew was daily life with God in the
wilderness. Long, inefficient, purposeless days -- or so it seemed.
In
these stories (and many others) there's no reason given for the slowness and
inefficiency of God. It's just how God operates, it seems. Sometimes, it seems, God moves slowly in spite of our
desires for God to do what we think God should do right now.
We don't like it, but I think it is good for us to experience this first hand. Sure, we've developed in our scientific culture ways to make
stuff happen faster. We don't have to wait for much these days. But, at what cost? Is it at the cost of destroying our
ability to wait? Is it at the cost of feeding our appetites for immediate gratification? Is it at the cost of learning to be dependent on our own human limited ingenuity, and forgetting that ultimately our lives depend on God's schedule?
In Psalm 40 the Psalmist begins saying, "I waited and waited and waited for God." The next sentence: "at last he
looked; finally he listened." Relief. The waiting is over.
But before the "at last" was the
waiting...and waiting......and waiting. This seems to be a constant refrain in the
Psalms. Yes God shows up. But not after the waiting.
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Maybe you, like many people in Scripture and in the world, have struggled with the waiting. Waiting for life to turn around. Waiting for God to do what we think God should do. Waiting for a relationship to heal (maybe make the first move?). Waiting and enduring human frailty for
years. Maybe it seems God's just not moving -- at all. Maybe you're getting
frustrated when the same old self keeps finding a way to make an appearance. Maybe
it's ongoing struggle with our loved ones. Maybe it's a struggle when others
don't ever seem to change.
God has not given up or turned away. But Scripture tells us this: God moves
slowly. There may not be a clear reason. It's just how God works. Usually there's a much bigger picture that we often don't and can't see. We are not the center of the universe.
I wonder, what if we
stopped the struggle? I wonder if in our struggling, impatiently trying to force the outcome we want, we lose the spiritual discipline of
waiting on God. We lose the spiritual discipline of prayer. We destroy our capacity of being silent and still. Or we blind our eyes to slowing down to see
each moment for what it is. Or we lose the importance of centering our existence on God and not a result.
It's in the waiting that the gardener looks at the seedlings anew every day.
It's in the waiting that the gardener must take time to water. It's in the waiting that the gardener monitors for bugs and other pests. It's in the
waiting that the gardener must take time to pull weeds, check the the soil,
provide plant supports if they are needed.
It's in the waiting period of slow
growth that the plant develops into a healthy plant, rather than a plant that
suffers and barely produces any fruit. Sometimes it's the slowness and the
inefficiency that result in both a stronger plant and a wiser gardener.
So, where are you tempted to be impatient with God, or with life? The experience of impatience is fine. God can deal with that. Remember the Psalmist; he called out to God out of impatience. But let me encourage you: let God work on you. How can you cultivate a mentality of waiting in your
life and in your family? Let the waiting become prayer. Let the knowledge that God moves slowly bring peace and
balance to your life. When you find you're in the struggle of waiting, pray -- everyday if you must -- and
focus on patience and peace as you learn to listen to God and live at God's pace.
In defiant hope,
Pastor Kyle
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