Living in a fast paced world like ours, where expectation and realization have almost merged into one, it is easy to become impatient. It is easy to expect everything to run with swift efficiency and move us to realize our hopes as quickly as we have them. I’m not sure if this says more about our almost “god-like” efficiency or about the size and scope of our expectation and hope. You see, I believe we are being programmed every single day to expect something just marginally bettter than what we already have. I believe we are being programmed to be dissatisfied with what we have now so that we might pass the cash onto someone else. Most everything we hope for can be realized with a simple (cash register) transaction.
But what if we have it all wrong? What if efficiency isn’t the most important thing? What if our hopes, so easily realized, are just too small? To risk being cliche, what if the journey really is more important than the destination?
Let’s slow down. Let’s be more relational (inefficient). Let’s adjust our hopes and expectations to strive for something so much bigger than the next iWidget 7.0. Let’s agree to disagree with the thousands of advertisements each day that try to convince us that happiness is just a transaction away. Let’s begin to trust again in the ‘slow work of God’.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin writes: Above all, trust in the slow work of God.We are all, quite naturally, impatient in everythingto 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 madeby passing through some stages of instability– and that it may take a very long time.And so I think it is with you.