A Prayer In Times of Instability

Above all, trust the slow work of God.

We are, quite naturally,

impatient in everything to 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 made by passing through

some stages of instability—

and 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

circumstances acting

on your own good will)

will make them 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, S. J.