On Tuesday evenings I am spending time at ECS’s ACCORD DUI program.  The program strives to reduce the incidence and prevalence of driving under the influence and the negative impact of this behavior on families, residents and the wider community.  Last week I sat in two different discussion groups.  There are so many different things I could write about but in this post I want to reflect on a comment that one of the staff made to me.   At the end of the evening I was talking about my experiences that evening with a small group of the staff.  I noted how the clients seemed to fall into three broad categories: those who accepted that their actions led to the DUI; those who accepted the seriousness of the DUI but did not accept, in part or fully, their own role in it (relying on excuses to explain away cause); and finally those who seemed to have not accepted the importance of the DUI itself.   One of the staff reminded me that everyone in the program works at their own speed.   Some will learn from the program faster, some slower, some will get it whilst they are in the program, some will get it after they have left and some will not get it at all.    As I drove home I started to think how we come to expect instant results.  Society teaches us to measure our success as a function of time.   We live in a McDonald’s world where our expectation is immediate service and anything less is unacceptable.

After getting home I settled down to read some more of Blake Barrow’s book “Stories from the Shelter” (see my last post for more about this book).  Chapter thirteen “John” is the story of a resident that came into Blake’s homeless mission, entered into their recovery program for alcoholism and settled into a new life and job at the mission.   All was going well until Blake tried to push John a little harder and faster.  John was not ready to move at Blake’s pace and ultimately broke his sobriety.  In Blake’s own words

Just as I had tried to move John along at my pace instead of his, HUD’s one-step, housing first solution for the homelessness doesn’t fit everyone’s needs.  For John, the shelter setting was healthier by far than having his own place…….He went home each day to isolation without any human interaction or supervision, and ten years of sobriety was destroyed in thirty days.

“Just as I had tried to move John along at my pace instead of his” again, even with the best intentions, we can feed the desire for the quick result.   We can also see this sense of urgency in the Gospels as well

And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. (Matthew 4:19-21)

It would be easy to conclude that our God is a fully paid up member of the McDonald brigade.  The sign of a good Christian/disciple is to instantly follow Jesus.  I don’t think that that is the case though.   The immediacy of action in Matthew’s calling of the disciples had more to do with demonstrating the awesomeness of Jesus that the disciples immediately felt.   Of course it is not only calls to immediate  action that we find in Holy Scripture we also find many reminders of patience.

 The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)

Many of our churches invite the congregation to share in the Holy meal with the words “wherever you are on your journey of faith you are welcome to participate at everything we do at the table”.  My own reflections and prayers this week have been that we extend that same invitation to all that we do.   God is patient.   Whether it is activities in church, working with people attending ECS’s DUI program, walking along side one of our brothers or sisters struggling with homelessness, mental health illness, addiction or their recovery we need to move at God’s pace.  And God’s pace will be unique for each and every situation and person.  Sometimes we will get that pace right, sometimes we will move to fast and at others too slow.

The lesson of the week for me was to start to learn to read the road signs that God shows us in life so that we know what pace He wants us to go.