By Canon Gerry Conroy
As the threat of the covid virus recedes, I find myself becoming more impatient for the full return to normality and at the same time keeping a close eye on the latest spike in the variants which would threaten to delay the full opening up of society again.
The whole situation seems to prey on this condition we have of seeking an immediate solution to our problems. Patience is not easy when you are frustrated by your situation; you want to move beyond the situation you feel stuck in as quickly as you can and you have little time for the ways of nature and its law of gradual growth.
As we have seen again and again in this pandemic, moving too quickly can be a mistake: it leaves you vulnerable because you haven’t got firm and solid foundations on which to build and when they are weak the smallest of upsets can leave you worse off than before.
That is a law not just of nature: trees take years to become strong and established to resist the winds that shake them; it is also the law of spiritual growth and of faith. We don’t see immediate results, or changes in us; it takes time to bear fruit.
Perhaps, however, the real difficulty for faith that this all brings to light is the uncertainty. That feeling that asks, ‘Am I doing this right?’ Or ‘Am I kidding myself on?’ ‘Is any of this real?’, ‘What’s the point of this?’. When you seem to be getting nowhere, when progress is so slow or imperceptible, when we don’t get the immediate resolution to our problems, it seems only natural to question everything. It’s hard living with that state of uncertainty. Is it really part and parcel of faith?
We are so used to looking for certainty, needing certainty in life, that it is difficult for us to live with uncertainty. It seems as if we might be deceiving ourselves, or being deceived.
That is, though, the sign of growth; there is always some uncertainty in that process, some need for patience and for trust: a realisation that certain things are not within our control even after we have done everything we could. In every process of growth there is a stage of awkwardness where things don’t quite seem to fit together properly, where coordination is jumpy and stilted until we reach a stage of synthesis and maturity and things start to fit together.
It’s the same in the spiritual journey we have undertaken and it demands patience of us and trust in God’s presence with us. Growth may be slow, but if we remain open to God and his grace, then that gradual maturation is taking place within us.
Maybe we are by nature insecure; certainly we seem to need constant reassurance, or encouragement in what we do. Very few can get by without it, very few of us can have the confidence in the face of life that St Paul seemed to have, but he had found the strength of grace in his weakness.
Perhaps we will never quite escape from our feelings of uncertainty or inadequacy about our faith, perhaps it helps keep us humble which is no bad thing. But it should also help us know more clearly the mercy of God so that we know our hope and our joy is found not in what we manage to do, but in that mercy which God will never take from us.
