Patient Trust

William Bridges in his book “Transitions” explains that the most difficult space for us to live in is in-between what was and what will be. Referred to often as the liminal space, it’s usually in the open waters between the safety of the dock we left and the one we are searching for that God does some of his deepest work in us.

For all of us that find ourselves being invited to patiently trust, may this prayer offer you some encouragement today to resist compulsivity and embrace “the slow work of God.”

Patient Trust
by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

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.