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.

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 undo haste.

Don’t try to force them on,
 As though
You could be today
What time will make you 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,

“The Making of a Mind” (p. 57-58)