“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways . . .” Psalm 37:7
As a young business professional there came a point when I became impatient that my career was not advancing fast enough. I wanted to move ahead, and move ahead of my peers. Chalk it up to ambition, but in retrospect my impatience sometimes caused more setbacks than advancements, such as the time I uprooted my family for an “opportunity” in another city. What I thought would surely lead to a giant leap in my career, thus my family’s financial wellbeing, turned out to be a near disaster. Fortunately – and literally by the grace of God – my mistake got redeemed and all turned out well. But I wonder sometimes how much better off I might have been had I remained slow and steady and waited patiently before the Lord.
There is no better illustration of this than the story of “The Tortoise and the Hare”, one of the best known and most beloved among Aesop’s fables. So the story goes, “The hare was once boasting of his speed before the other animals. ‘I have never yet been beaten,’ said he, ‘when I put forth my full speed. I challenge any one here to race with me.’ The tortoise said quietly, ‘I accept your challenge.’ ‘That is a good joke,’ said the hare, ‘I could dance around you all the way.’ ‘Keep your boasting till you’ve won,’ answered the tortoise. ‘Shall we race?’ So a course was fixed and a start was made. The hare darted almost out of sight at once, but soon stopped and, to show contempt for the tortoise, lay down to have a nap. The tortoise plodded on and plodded on, and when the hare awoke from his nap, he saw the tortoise just near the winning-post and could not run up in time to save the race. Then the tortoise said, ‘Slow and steady wins the race.’”
Sarah Young, in her bestselling devotional book Jesus Calling claims that, “Much, much stress results from your wanting to make things happen before their times have come.” Boy was that ever true for me! But in my case, it was not that I was cocky and over-confident like the hare, I simply got impatient, and fretted when others succeeded ahead of me, instead of “being still before the Lord and waiting patiently for him.” Thankfully that near demise of my career served as a wakeup call, awakening the tortoise within me. It reminded me that God’s pace is always perfect, not our selfish ambition, and being slow and steady, obedient and faithful to Him will win the race – every time.
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