The last few days I’ve been asking you to consider your blessings, especially those ones which maybe aren’t obvious to you at the time (Are They Blessings In Disguise #1 and #2). Having written the first of these blog posts and starting on the second one, I received an email from a friend which contained a prayer which was by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
Ever since I read this prayer it’s been in my mind, and I believe it’s because it follows on perfectly to my last two blog posts, as it reminds us that we are often impatient and want everything to happen now. However God has a plan for us, he knows our starting point and he know where he wants us to be, but unlike us who just want to get to the end point, God wants and needs us to do all the stuff in between even although at the time we may not understand it’s significance.
God’s work in our life may seem slow to us at times, however consider this, have there actually been lots of blessings in disguise during those in-between times?
Here’s Pierre Teilhard de Chardin prayer:
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. Yet it is the law of all progress that is made by passing through some stages of instability and that 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 on 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 could say what this new Spirit gradually forming in 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. Above all, trust in the slow work of God, our loving vine-dresser. by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Amen
When we look at someone, we all (often subconsciously) judge them or put a label on them. Based on how little we often know about people we’ve known and spoken to for years, isn’t it quite ridiculous that just from seeing someone for a few minutes we think we can put a label on them.
The answer to both these questions was definitely No! If anyone had bothered to ask me why I didn’t seem very happy, I would have told them why – I wasn’t feeling too good and was in a lot of pain.
