If You Want to Catch the Squirrel...

This morning, I preached/spoke/taught (what's the difference anymore?) in the church school's lower chapel, which consists of Kindergarten through fourth grade. It was strange to stand up and see my church's sanctuary filled to the back with little munchkins, stranger still to find myself speaking to them, and even stranger to see most of them engaged in the message. However, what was most surreal about the entire experience is that the message which, I admit, I threw together in a couple of days, somehow morphed into the story of my life, unbeknown to the crowd of rug-rats and their teachers.

The theme of the chapels for this year is "the fruits of the Spirit," and I spoke about patience and self-control using my parents' two dogs, Gracie and Molly, and their continual epic struggle against a devious wild squirrel as a means to communicate the importance of stepping back and learning to wait on things rather than rushing right in.

I explained that the consequences to rushing in and not thinking things through can oftentimes be painful, much like Gracie, when she somehow manages to scrape her way up onto the lowest nook of the tree, sprains her paw almost every time when she has to hop back down. And I am not much different...

It is extremely difficult to be patient, to wait on things. When I get a bright idea, I normally take off after it and decide that, if I'm going to think it through I'm going to do so only in the time allotted on the way and if not then screw thinking anything through at all. I feel like this sometimes happens to Leigh and I, as well as with my work in the youth group, but lately I realize that my entire psyche is geared this way, to chase before I know the prey, to shoot before I even see the target.

It occurs to me (as I'm sure it occurs to other people a lot earlier in life) that impatience is at the root of much of our division and animosity. It could be argued that the mishandling of the War in Iraq (no matter how much you may think it was or was not mishandled) came from mere impatience on the part of those who knew we needed to do something about Hussein's regime (and I have just realized, as a complete side note, that Hussein sorta rhymes with "insane"). The same could be considered for many of the problems in the denominational splits, specifically Baptists, over the past several years. Impatience leads us away from an amicable solution - it does not lead us there faster.

And, in my mind, this all spirals back to me, and my inability to wait on the good things and to control myself from chasing after the bad things. And even if I do decide to seek after the good things with more vigor, I transition from battling impatience to battling procrastination, which I suppose, is just impatience in another form.

Life is not easy. Simple, yes. But never easy, at least not for someone who truly wants to embrace it. In doing so, there comes the subtlest of struggles, from the need to tweak relationships, overcome disagreements and misunderstandings, reassess ideas and accept failure, and learning each day how to walk a straighter, narrower line in regard to all the hundred million buzzing flies of distraction that play incessantly before our eyes. To be impatient in any or all of these circumstances is to turn our backs on the goodness and worth of the world. To embrace the world and seek its goodness - to embrace life - is to overcome our desire to have everything immediately.

It is a truth I hope at least the children caught, if not me as well. There's no need to leap into the tree. Just let the squirrel be, because, if we remain patient, eventually it'll have to come down, right?

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! - Psalm 27:13-14