By Steven Norris
“Could you possibly move any slower!?” I sat in my driveway, staring at the door, excruciatingly watching as my chances of being on time diminished by the second. Such is life for the parents of teenage boys.
I am not a very patient person — my personality type is one that thrives on productivity and just how efficiently I can fill each twenty-four-hour period. In addition to my current project, there are at least five more lined up in the mental queue. Waiting for a child who is afflicted by a chronic case of procrastination does not make that list.
Theologian, Leonard Sweet’s voice tormented my innate sense of productivity this week. He quoted a modern paraphrase of Francis Bacon’s essay, “On Studies” stating:
“It is not what we eat but what we digest that makes us strong; not what we gain but what we save that makes us rich; not what we read but what we remember that makes us learned; not what we preach but what we practice that makes us Christian.”
How terribly inefficient! I can eat fast, but digestion takes time. I can go out and make a fast buck, but holding onto it requires time and self-control. I can consume information quickly, but retaining it requires careful notes and periodic review. Speaking words is easy but taking time to actually live them out by wading into the messiness of our neighbor’s lives can be a challenge at times.
Back in ninth-grade geometry class, my teacher taught us that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. I have always wondered why God does not allow more straight lines in the spiritual life. My own spiritual journey might be better described as “the winding path of transformation” (to borrow a phrase from Jeffrey Tacklind). In truth, I have typically been able to see the hand of God at work only in retrospect. In the moment, the “path” felt like a collection of random decisions based on circumstantial evidence.
As I age (mature?) I am coming to believe that the “winding path” provides me the time needed to digest the emotional, mental, and spiritual nourishment available in these day-to-day experiences. The “winding path” causes me to ration my resources and not exhaust them on a myopic sprint after the latest spiritual trend. The “winding path” forces me to circle back to things I thought I had learned and mastered, only to experience them on a deeper and more profound level.
It is the fourth week of Lent — a season for slowing down, quieting our souls, and giving ourselves permission to linger. It is a time to sit with the experiences of the past year in search of the wisdom that can be digested from them. It is a time to connect the dots in search of God’s bigger picture for our lives.
Do not beat yourself up if it feels like transformation is delayed. Instead, trust the slow transformation of God’s patient, steady, and winding grace.