slow going

a thoughtful farmer once said to keep away from electric wire, keep away from screens (like the one you are reading from right now, dear one) and to communicate slowly. She wishes she could be a better poet like him, however, she’s a rather feeble poet at this juncture in her life. She would be a farmer too, but that’s not working out so well for her currently.

But she has asked God about it, so if it’s supposed to happen, it will. She is all about slow living and farmer-ish practices and staying away from screens to make mud pies with children and dance in falling rain, and make bread the old fashioned way without fancy mixers and such.

sadly enough, the only really “slow” thing about her currently is how she’s winding her way through Genesis like a slow crab meandering across the sands of the seashore. It’s slow going, not because of the daunting genealogies, but because she feels she’s reading Genesis for the first time. Again. Or perhaps she’s reading it with new eyes. In its beautiful story of redemption, she sees herself; as fearful Abraham and Isaac who both hide in fear behind their wives (c’mon boys, seriously….), and as Sarah and Rachel who decided to take matters into their own hands, and end up making everything 10000x worse (c’mon girls, seriously….).

she needs the slowness of Genesis. She needs the reminder that God doesn’t operate like the neatness of a train’s time schedule, or like the consistency of water dripping, or like the quickness of her boss running down the stairs. There is a reason for the song, ‘Come Thou Long Expected Jesus’. He takes His time. Our stories will take time. Our sanctification will take time. Our maturity will take time. Our building of discernment and wisdom and truth will take time. God is in no hurry. Her mind rifles back amongst files to gather the quote she remembers a kind old preacher once saying, “in today’s age, a man or woman is measured by what they accomplish. But in the scripture, a man or a woman is measured by what they’ve become”.

it took Jacob years and years to receive a new name, like it took years and years before Sarah named a child ‘laughter’. Truly, we should and ought to laugh at our own impatient time table. we are wandering Israelites, stopping after one week in the desert to munch on a brittle piece of melon and ask, “are we there yet”? We scratch our heads, share our melon and wonder what’s taking things so long.

“Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient.” James 5:7-8