Monday Morning Meditation #12: An Impatient People

This week, ploughing through chapters of Exodus that contain the laws that God gave to His people, I recognized the initial corpus of regulations for British common law upon which US law rests. Informative enough to require reflection!

After wondering whether I was being set up to become an overnight lawyer, I reached the more interesting (to me) story of how the Israelites grew tired of waiting for Moses -- there were, after all, a lot of laws being handed down -- and coerced Aaron into making a golden calf for them to worship. Of course, God was angry. Moses was so angry that he broke the tablets containing the Ten Commandments.

Reading: Exodus 32: 1-6

Meditation: I cannot help but see immense parallel between the Israelites' attitude and the attitude that I see on a daily basis, and, admittedly, even have at times adopted myself. The Israelites were not the only impatient people!

So many times I have heard people say that God did not answer their prayer. My catechism kids, for example, in their moments of greater skepticism will say that God does not care about them or will even question whether God exists because they did not get the answer to prayer that they wanted in precisely the manner they wanted at precisely the time that they wanted. Beyond understanding that "no" is a legitimate answer, they often need to be led to consider the possibilities that (1) God's answer will be better for them in the long run, (2) sometimes we want and ask for things that we should not have, and (3) that seemingly unanswered prayers may simply be prayers that have not been answered yet. I cannot recall not having a prayer answered, but I can recall longer waits than I would have liked and often getting answers I had not anticipated -- better answers, more creative answers, la chose juste that is beyond my capacity to conceive even though I am an inveterate out-of-the-box thinker. (My daughter, Lizzie, insists that I have not yet found the box.)

Deep down we know that patience is a virtue. Don't many of us pray for patience? But, as the joke goes, don't we often tell God that we want more patience, and we want it right now? Yes, we are an impatient people.

Sufis consider waiting to be a virtue that God requires of them. I have a Sufi friend, a poet, whose life has embodied this virtue and whose writing is filled with it. Deep down we, too, know the value of waiting. Don't we say that we often receive greater enjoyment in the anticipation than in the receiving of something? When we receive something for which we have long waited, don't we attach greater meaning to it? Ah, yes, we do that and know that, but nonetheless we are an impatient people.

And that is far as I can go with you on this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to ask God for that proverbial patience, to express my regret for my daily moments of impatience, especially in those cases when I don't rein in or hide my impatience well in working with employees, to give thanks for God's great kindness in not becoming angry with me as with the Israelites (at least, I have never seen His anger, but then I have not yet made any golden calves -- fortunately, I don't have the gold, literal or allegorical, to do that), to offer praise for the ways in which He leads me to develop patience by the practice of waiting, and especially to tell Him that I know He spoils me far more often than I deserve (but I like it) by not making me wait very long at all.

After that, I will spend some time in contemplation, patiently abiding in His presence, which is the most joyful start to the day that I have ever experienced.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation.

Have a good day and a spirit-filled week, and may you find the patience you need in dealing with others and the trust to wait for responses to prayers not yet answered.

If you pick this up as a weekly devotional activity, please share with me and others your own thoughts about the message of Exodus 32: 1-6 or any other scripture that you choose for meditation. Feel free to copy the image of the mission church; maybe some time in the near future my Internet-inept self will be able to figure out how to use the Mr. Linky buttons, but to date I remain incompetent at the more sophisticated blog stuff. In the interim, you are welcome to use the image and share the meme of Monday Morning Meditation for starting out the work week closer to God.