IMPATIENCE
Do you remember when you were very young? If you were like me then impatience would have been part of your make up. Everything had to be done immediately, if not sooner. ‘Later’ was light-years away and ‘tomorrow’ was beyond eternity. Did we learn anything as children about patience or is that something that grows on you with each passing year?
I read a sad little story about a child who found a flask-shaped cocoon of an emperor moth and kept it in a little box for a year, waiting fairly patiently for something to happen. The cocoon of the emperor moth is peculiar in its shape and construction. A narrow opening is left at the neck of the structure through which the perfect moth forces its way out. You would wonder, as this child did, how such a large moth could pass through such a small opening.
Eventually, the time arrived for the moth to escape from its long confinement. The child watched its efforts for hours as it struggled to get out, but it just couldn’t seem to make it. Finally, the child’s patience was exhausted. Perhaps, she thought, because it had been kept in a box rather than in its natural environment, it had been weakened in some way. In any event, the child’s compassion overtook wisdom and with the point of some scissors, carefully she snipped the opening to make it larger. And then with perfect ease the moth appeared, dragging a huge swollen body and small shrivelled wings. The child watched breathlessly, waiting to see a marvellous transformation take place. But the wait was in vain. It didn’t change into a creature of great beauty with exquisitely marked wings, but remained a stunted abortion, crawling painfully through its brief life instead of flying through the air on rainbow wings.
What the child had failed to appreciate in an impatience tempered by compassion, is that as the moth struggles its way through the narrow opening of the cocoon, body juices are forced into the wings and muscles. The child, innocently, had circumvented God’s perfect design because of impatience.
A great deal is said in the Bible about waiting for God, or on God. We so easily grow impatient of God’s delays. Much of our trouble in life comes from our restlessness and sometimes reckless haste. We cannot wait for the fruit to ripen, we pick it green. We cannot wait for the answers to our prayers, although the things we may ask for may require many years in their preparation for us. We are urged to walk with God, but at times God walks oh so slowly. It’s indeed fortunate that our God is faithful as well as patient because so many times He has to wait for us.
Have a good (and patient) week. Pastor Ron.
Optional Bible reading: Galatians 5:16-26
This is one of a series of weekly messages of encouragement, now in its sixth year, originating from the Derwent Valley, near Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. A companion Bible study page is available each week. To subscribe email <> with the words ‘subscribe word’ (or)
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Pastor Ron Clarke JP (Mark 16:15) An e-mail from the Derwent Valley, near Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
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