Coracle Trust E-Reflections

In suspense and incomplete

Wednesday 19 January 2011

The mills of God grind slow, but they grind exceeding small. Winston Churchill, CHECK

Trust in the slow work of God

I recall some mention of Churchill saying: "the mills of God are slow, but they grind exceeding small". This recollection was prompted by a reading I heard last week which I have copied below: Patient Trust Above all, trust in the slow work of God We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end withour 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 progress that it is made by passing through some states 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 cirsumstances 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. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ