The Expansion of Holy Impatience
"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also he has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end." Ecclesiastes 3:11
"Putting Willie Mays in a small ballpark," opines Donald Honig, "would be like cutting a masterpiece to fit a frame."
Even those of us born in a later generation of gotten to see Mays' mastery in the vast expanse of the Polo Grounds. Honig is right. The experience would have been truncated in a venue that gave him less opportunity to stride.
When we do what by God's grace we do best and begin to abut the limits on our time to do it, we experience the opposite. We experience Willie Mays in a small ballpark, the masterpiece cut to fit the frame, the midlife crisis.
We also, says the author of Ecclesiastes 3:11, experience something else if we wait beyond explosion or embittered resignation. We experience the reality that God has put eternity within the hearts of men.
Isn't there time enough in your life to do that thing during which you most experience God's pleasure, the way Eric Liddle said he did when he ran? You may have an idol, wanting God's gift on your terms. But at least in the initial impulse, you may be experiencing a kind of holy impatience. You may be getting a reminder that God has placed eternity in your heart.
The ultimate flowering of our gifts and enthusiasms, I suspect, will not happen until we experience them in Christ's perfect Presence. By that point, glorified ourselves, reflects CS Lewis in The Screwtape Letters, we will be able to enjoy the gifts God has given us as though they were someone else's. We will have done away with false modesty and braggadocio alike.
We won't be distracted from the exercise of the thing because we are preoccupied with how much human affirmation we can drain from it. Instead, even Heaven's great cloud of witnesses will be relegated to the background behind the One Who claims proprietary authority and enjoyment over our gifts.
"Putting Willie Mays in a small ballpark," opines Donald Honig, "would be like cutting a masterpiece to fit a frame."
Even those of us born in a later generation of gotten to see Mays' mastery in the vast expanse of the Polo Grounds. Honig is right. The experience would have been truncated in a venue that gave him less opportunity to stride.
When we do what by God's grace we do best and begin to abut the limits on our time to do it, we experience the opposite. We experience Willie Mays in a small ballpark, the masterpiece cut to fit the frame, the midlife crisis.
We also, says the author of Ecclesiastes 3:11, experience something else if we wait beyond explosion or embittered resignation. We experience the reality that God has put eternity within the hearts of men.
Isn't there time enough in your life to do that thing during which you most experience God's pleasure, the way Eric Liddle said he did when he ran? You may have an idol, wanting God's gift on your terms. But at least in the initial impulse, you may be experiencing a kind of holy impatience. You may be getting a reminder that God has placed eternity in your heart.
The ultimate flowering of our gifts and enthusiasms, I suspect, will not happen until we experience them in Christ's perfect Presence. By that point, glorified ourselves, reflects CS Lewis in The Screwtape Letters, we will be able to enjoy the gifts God has given us as though they were someone else's. We will have done away with false modesty and braggadocio alike.
We won't be distracted from the exercise of the thing because we are preoccupied with how much human affirmation we can drain from it. Instead, even Heaven's great cloud of witnesses will be relegated to the background behind the One Who claims proprietary authority and enjoyment over our gifts.
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