The Divine Delay
As I sit here and feed my son a bottle, I begin reflecting on something that he just did.
My son is getting to the point (or is already at the point) to where he can grab a bottle with his hands and pull the bottle towards his mouth. At times, he gets his hands on the bottle and pulls it so hard towards himself, that I have to hold the bottle at the other end to prevent him from letting the bottle smack him in the face.
Now, he doesn't know any better, he just wants to eat and he's beginning to associate that he can control the movement of the bottle to some extent.
Aren't we ,too, like this in some ways with different aspects of our own lives? I can think of various examples of when I wanted something so bad, or had laser focus concentration on one particular thing, that I would do almost anything necessary to achieve whatever goal that was.
A lot of times, I would not get said thing that I wanted. Could it be that God prevented that from happening because it was not good for my own safety? Or if I did get said thing and it took a lot longer than I anticipated, was God behind that delay?
In St. Paul's letter to the Romans, in chapter 8, verse 25, he says:
"But if we hope for what we do not see,
We wait for with patience"
As always, he knows what to say.
Let us take heed to what the great evangelist to the gentiles said and focus on it. Patience is difficult, but imperative in the spiritual life. Look at Christ in the desert for 40 days. Talk about patience. Not to mention, He was battered with temptation along the way.
The next time we are in a situation where we are putting all of our concentration into, let us take a step back and reflect in prayer to think about a few things: first, is this part of God's will? Secondly, if not, what am I missing? What does He want me to understand in this? Thirdly, if it is indeed God's will, then let us prayerfully reflect on why it may be taking longer than we expected or wanted. More often than not He wants to make known to us some revelation through the Holy Spirit.
Back to the illustration of my son, because he has no concept of his action leading to pain without my intervention, it wouldn't be very fatherly of me to let the bottle go from my grasp and watch it go crashing into his mouth. God is doing much the same out of His love for us. Let us recognize that.
