Tomorrow I start the Spiritual Exercises.
Starting a retreat can be exciting and scary at the same time. I have a bunch of questions rolling around in my head right now. What if I can’t find the time to dedicate to this? What if I’m not ready for what God wants to tell me in prayer? What if I am open and willing to listen…. and I hear nothing?
I’m a slightly impatient person (haha) who likes to see the end sometimes even before the beginning. I like to know what’s going to happen. I like to know how long it’s going to take. I’d like to set my watch please!!
But that’s not how prayer works. That’s not how the Spiritual Exercises work either. They take the time they take…. and the fruits continue come even long after you’ve made it through the retreat.
So this morning, I’m praying for patience. May I truly trust in the slow work of God.
And may you trust in it as well. God has much to show you.
All in good time.
“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.
Don’t try to force them on,
As though you could be today
What time will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
Gradually forming within 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.”
-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
