Things Take Time

13 Jan

“Even miracles take a little time.”  ~ The Fairy Godmother (Cinderella)

A popular slogan in the Armed Forces in World War II was, “The difficult we do immediately.  The impossible takes a little longer.”  This reflected the spirit of those engaged in the Armed Forces.  They were, in effect, telling the world that they were going to get things done, that they would eventually conquer.

Cinderella was very forlorn.  She had pretty much given up hope.  Her Fairy Godmother had to remind her that things — even miracles — take time.  That is something that we need to hear and accept because we often put ourselves on impossible timelines.  We expect things to be done now if not yesterday.

We expect that of others and we expect that of ourselves as well.  But that’s not realistic.  Things take time.  Perfection?  That takes even longer.  That doesn’t mean that it’s impossible.  It just means that it takes time and, perhaps, just perhaps, we need to cut ourselves some slack.

We often get into a frenzy when we evaluate our spiritual lives.  We think that we are not where we should be.  Maybe we don’t pray as much as we think we ought.  Maybe we don’t carve the time out of our daily lives to reflect as we desire.  Maybe we are not involved in as many volunteer activities that we believe we should engage in.  If we find ourselves falling short, sometimes we judge ourselves as failures.

How can a person who is trying be a failure?  Instead of judging ourselves as failures, we need to access the situations and determine what we need to do to continue.  Perfection will come one day: after we die and go the heaven.  Until then, the seeking of perfection is going to have to suffice.

FAITH ACTION:  Don’t be upset if your spiritual life is not progressing at the pace you wished it would.  Be content with the fact that it is moving forward.