Trusting as we Stretch
Patient Trust - Teilhard de Chardin to his cousin Marguerite to encourage and inspire her (and us) towards deeper life and patient trust in the God-who-is-love. Especially when it takes sooo long.
“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
(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of 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.”[1]
At its very best, Christianity is about love. A uniquely human story for humans who are very much on an evolutionary journey invited and inspired towards Christlikeness as we learn to embody and partake in the divine nature of love. Perhaps this is Imago Dei - the human capacity to embody the God-who-is-Love, self—giving, whole-making, beautiful love in the world.
This journey has been and continues to be a slow and patient work of God. A 13.8 billion year relational becoming with its share of dead ends and colossal failures along with novelty, beauty, and significant tipping points along the way. Uncontrolling, self-giving love has been intimately entangled in this journey from its initiation – loving by coaxing, wooing, calling, inspiring, and empowering at each step until, in the fullness of time, when all will be all in love, in the fullness of relationship with Love itself.
In the space between now and then, with its share of doubts, anxieties, conflicts and strife, we take a deep breath:
”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.”
Let us together stretch towards love, co-creating with God and one another towards whole-making beauty, and by grace, we patiently trust in the hope that the God who is Love never fails.
[1] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The Making of a Mind. Letters from a Soldier-Priest.