I am an impatient person. It is one of my flaws, and I have all too many of those.
I just hate to wait. Hope deferred, as the Bible says, makes the heart sick.
Don’t think I’m not grateful–I have been blessed with a career I love, and all the benefits that come with it. I just have a tendency to focus on future goals, to the point where I miss the wonderful things that are happening in my life right now.
I have reconnected with my cousin, Jay Dee, the singing cowboy and champion motorbike rider. (His dad, my Uncle Jack, was the rodeo cowboy I told you about, and Jay has the same spirit.) His beautiful sisters, Barbara Lynn and Becky, are an inspiration to me. Their courage, faith and creativity would fill a hundred blogs. They make jewelry, and many other ingeniously lovely things, and write poetry that touches the heart. Oh, indeed, they are a blessing. Google Jay Lael, and you’ll see what I mean.
Here is what came out of my journaling this morning. Suppose what I see as delays are REALLY sacred processes instead? So often it is not the event that troubles us, but the way we perceive that event. Do we see some setback, large or small, as a delay? Or might we examine it more closely and, as Tony Robbins says, “reframe” it?
I know there are things you are praying for, and things you are waiting for, and maybe your heart is even a little (or a lot) sick, because you have named the challenge “Delay”. Try naming it “Process” instead.
You don’t have to look very far to see that God works by process. Great trees don’t spring up overnight. And neither do great dreams. Would you plant an acorn and stand over the place where you buried it, wringing your hands and lamenting, “When, oh, when, will there be a tree?” (Variations on this pitiful theme are: “God must not want me to have this tree” and “Trees grow for others, but not for me.”) NO, of course not! You would say, “I planted an acorn here. A great tree will grow on this very spot.” You might water the ground, or even place a protective fence around it to keep it safe. But you would trust in the Process that makes a tree. So it is with dreams–you plant them, you nurture them, and you believe they will grow. You water them, often with tears, but you don’t dig them up to see if they’ve sprouted. You trust the process.
Think about it. Are your dreams delayed? Or are they in process?
