Forever Patient

I am always amazed by the speed lim­its of life. The world turns only so fast. Cells mul­ti­ply at the rates deter­mined by their DNA. Aging is rel­a­tively con­sis­tent. These days most peo­ple see the bet­ter part of a cen­tury. All in all, life is a test in patience. You have to wait twenty to thirty years to see how your new­born will turnout. Full moral devel­op­ment takes almost a quar­ter of a cen­tury. No mat­ter what you do to speed life along, you will hit a brick wall. Life is its own dynamic. Peo­ple that tried to skip ado­les­cence by being lit­tle adults dis­cover that their mid-life cri­sis is actu­ally a sec­ond ado­les­cence. Life has to check cer­tain things off the list for full devel­op­ment.
From the things that have hap­pened this morn­ing, I already wish this day was over. It is only a wish. I have to go through this day no mat­ter what (assum­ing a meteor does not hit me on the head and strike me dead). This day can­not be hur­ried along. It has its own pace. Just to test me, it looks like it has brought a load of frus­tra­tions. It looks like the only tool I have to deal with this is patience. So, I dig it out of my spir­i­tual tool­box and put it to work. You should see it. It is heavy and well worn. It also has the feel of some­thing a lot stronger than tem­pered steel. I do not know what it is made of, but it looks like it will last an eter­nity.
“Wait­ing upon the Lord” has never been my strong suit. For the most part, I would rather just make it all hap­pen in pre­dictable ways — and at speeds I alone deter­mine. Col­lege should have been a week. Child­hood should have taken no longer than a month. A snow ski­ing vaca­tion should last a decade. If I were the world’s archi­tect, I would have made a few changes. I would have espe­cially left out all things that require patience. At least that is how I feel today.
Deep down inside, I know my world would have been that of a shoot­ing star — bright but brief. God’s pace is to be pre­ferred. I still do not know why Deity has to take so long at the tasks of life. A quar­ter cen­tury to get started. Two more quar­ters or so and it is over. Do you ever get the feel­ing that the learn­ing curve is skewed heav­ily on the front end? About the time you get it all fig­ured out, it is over.
I do not know what is going on, but I do have the feel­ing that this is a prac­tice run. If the next world is one eter­nal day, then I bet­ter bring my patience tool along with me. This day is only twenty-four hours. I can endure that. A never-ending day? That will take some practice.