The Slow Work of God

by Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin


Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are all, 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 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 and 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 can say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.

Give God the benefit of believing that the Spirit of God
is leading you, forming you, transforming you;

And accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.