Unhurried

It occurred to me this morning that part of the gift of the vast creation all around us is an unending display of the variety and power and imagination God holds and the reminder that lavish scenery should be to us of His ability to answer our prayers and meet us in our needs.  His creativity (ability to devise a unique and good solution) and His inventiveness (ability to figure out what will work and how to set it in motion) and His artistry (the beauty and breath-taking way He comes up with) and His care (nourishing, nurturing, and strengthening us as we follow) are unrivaled. 

But to enter the realms of these possibilities so to experience the wonder of His work requires some decisions on our part. He is undoubtedly a God able to do instant miraculous things.  Sometimes He does.  And sometimes He is cooking up a solution that needs to simmer like a stew, whose flavors can’t be gained without the time for it to develop deeply, whose work is wider and deeper than we could have imagined.  He is after delight yes, but also of deep and mature work.  Are we willing to wait if that is the recipe He is working on?

I am not saying that it is easy to learn to hear His voice.  It is harder still to follow—to yield our own kingdom for the promises of His.  But it seems our current inclinations in a world of ever-increasing speed and expectation has reduced the time we are willing to give God to work.  Often, frankly, we want our happiness and we want it now.  In our impatience, we miss so many masterpieces and settle for our own fast food drive-through solutions that satisfy the taste buds of the moment.  We miss the formation of sitting at His feet listening, of being shaped as we see the unfolding of His wisdom, of gaining the experience of trust that reveals His utter faithfulness, of receiving the prizes He had in mind. 

Of course, He can and does still work when we don’t choose as we could have.  That is the miracle of grace and restoration and the heart of the gospel.  But let’s be honest with ourselves and not use those precious gifts as an excuse to do what we know is not His best.  That’s the thing about the drive-through menu…it is all listed right there as a choice, shiny and colorful and seemingly inexpensive.  Let’s please be more discerning with our precious lives.