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? Yogurt

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Some Christians want every day to be harvest time. Therapists are often asked. "why does it take so long for someone to get better?" The ultimate answer to this question is that time is God's way of bring about the wholeness lost in Eden. It takes time to wok the soil with his ingredients of grace and truth, and to allow them to take effect.

The Teacher in Ecclesiastes understands that there is a time for everything:
A time to be born and a time to die,
A time to plant and a time to uproot,
A time to kill and a time to heal,
A time to tear down and a time to build,
A time to weep and a time to laugh,
A time to mourn and a time to dance,
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
A time to embrace and a time to refrain,
A time to search and a time to give up,
A time to keep and a time to throw away,
A time to tear and a time to mend,
A time to be silent and a time to speak,
A time to love and a time to hate,
A time for war and a time for peace.
(3:2-8)

Everything happens in its own good time.

Paul acknowledges this when writing to the Corinthians: "Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly - mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready" (1 Cor. 3:1-2)

We will encounter problems if we do not realize that a Christian goes through different stages of growth. We must mature in one stage before we can go on to the next. To progress to that next stage, we must have time along with grace and truth. An infant, for example, can not handle solid food until her digestive system has had time to develop. A six month old child cannot pick up his own toys and put them away until he's able to walk to the toy box. The concrete foundation of a house needs time to harden before the frame can be added. God understands such a developmental process; he invented it. He uses time.

But people often wish to rush things. We have always been enticed by shortcuts. But shortcuts often spell failure, and this is Satan's goal. Satan tempts with quick riches and money making schemes; God offers the blessings of long-time faithfulness: "A faithful man will be richly blessed, but one eager to get rich will not go unpunished" (Prov. 28:20).

Satan tempts with instant intimacy through sexual passion, but God offers the faithful building of a loving relationship. Diet fads tempt with quick weight loss, but such diets do not develop the long-term discipline needed to maintain weight loss. Drugs and alcohol hold out immediate relief from suffering, but do not build character that can endure.

Quick growth with no firm root will always be superficial and short-lived. Deep growth is always slower. God's way always takes time.

I love the old proverb that says "The longest distance between any 2 points is the shortcut." By trying to take the short route, we sometimes end up taking longer than we would have had we taken the long route in the first place. Whenever people want something "NOW", they will often pay later.

Spiritual and emotional growth takes time, and often a transformation happens over time without the person knowing quite how it happened.

"A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts up and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain - first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head." (Mark 4:26-29)

This passage illustrates an important truth about the growth process. It cannot be willed. It can only be enhanced by adding grace, truth and time and then God produces the growth. If we are depressed, for example, it does no good to try to be "undepressed." It does help, however, to cultivate the soil of our soul with the nutrients of grace, truth, and time. Only then will we gradually be transformed to greater and greater stages of joy.

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My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4)

Just as there is good time and bad time, there is good endurance and bad endurance. When we suffer, is the true self growing or is the false self just enduring pain? If we are on God's surgery table in grace-giving relationship with our real self, time spent suffering will produce completeness; we will grow up, and we will experience changes that heal.

Jesus, who transcends time, could see the present state of Peter, how he would fail in future, as he deny 3 times that he know Jesus, and how, after his failure, he would mature to help others like himself. And, in all of it, he totally accepted Peter.

The Lord accepts us fully, knowing that we will need time and experience to work out our imperfections. Our failures do not surprise him. If they surprise us, it is only because we have too high an opinion of ourselves. We have a standing in grace that gives us freedom to achieve truth over time.

The truth we need to achieve has many aspects. It includes the developmental needs of the real self, the grace of relationship, and the external truth of the precepts of God. And it takes time for all of these to work.