Above All, Trust in the Slow Work of God

This is a poem I received in my Bible study last week...I love it.

Above All, Trust in the Slow Work of God
Above all, trust in 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.
Yet it is the law of all progress that is made
by passing through some stages of instability
and that may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.
Let them shape themselevs without undue haste.
Do not 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 you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new Spirit
gradually forming in 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.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God,
our loving vine dresser.
Amen.