Slow

It’s officially Spring, yet despite the snowdrops, daffodils and catkins, this week of early March is bringing a blast of winter once more. Spring doesn’t seem to be here just yet. It is slow in coming. And, if you are like me, we are impatient for Spring to come in all its glory. We are impatient for Summer. When we plant our seeds, we keep looking for signs of germination and growth, we want everything to come, now.

As you may have heard at my ordination, the journey from the initial sense of call to ministry to finally being ordained last week, spanned many years. It was a slow process with many humps and bumps on the way. Sometimes I really wondered if I had heard God’s voice aright, but then something would happen, and that sense of call grew stronger. So, what was happening during all those years? I would say that it was the slowness of discipleship, like the seeds planted in the ground, steadily germinating and growing.

Easter is still a month away, even though the shops suggest otherwise with their displays of eggs and bunnies. We long for Easter and resurrection glory, but we are called to the slow walk of discipleship through Lent. Discipleship isn’t always glorious, like Spring. Often discipleship is hard-going, painful, and confusing. The German theologian and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, famously stated that ‘When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die’. Bonhoeffer was murdered on the orders of Hitler just a month before the end of WW2.

Spring is coming, Easter is coming, resurrection glory is coming, but for now we are all called to the slow and steady walk of discipleship. God calls us to walk humbly, and sometimes we might feel lost, yet as we walk the path of discipleship, God walks with us by the Spirit and God is always calling us onto new adventures.