At our 2019 retreat on spirituality in the wilderness, Abbot
Jerome Kodell offered an insight we can learn from Rebekah, wife of Isaac. God
told Rebekah before her twins were born that the younger would serve the older,
but Rebekah was impatient for that to happen, so she devised a plan whereby her
son Jacob would dupe his father and cheat his brother to receive the blessing
of the firstborn. This plan caused a rift in the family that separated brother
from brother and child from parent; Rebekah never saw either of her sons again,
and it took more than 20 years for the brothers to reconcile.
What can we learn from this story? Abbot Jerome quoted St.
Vincent de Paul: “Those who are in a hurry delay the things of God.” We need to
be patient and wait for God’s way to unfold, for that way contains wisdom
beyond our own ability to see and our own desires.
It is hard for humans to wait. It feels like we are wasting
time. The following meditation by Bob Holmes offers a helpful perspective:
In Christ,
Being always precedes becoming and doing.
Take time to be, to breathe and dwell.
Take time and own this moment.
Take time with eternity.
Most of us are very busy about becoming and doing. Even on
retreat, I find myself working to accomplish things: Finish reading that book. Write
that letter. Prepare that lesson for the prison. Instead, as Jesus showed, we
need to show obedience to God first by being and by leaving the rest in God’s
hands.
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