Waiting

One thing most of us find difficult to do is to wait. We jump queues, we push others aside, we throw tantrums, etc, all because we do not like to wait.
Interestingly, we are quick to accuse others of unwillingness to wait. Once I got a ride from a senior colleague in Nigeria’s Capital, Abuja. It was one of those rides you come out of and vow never to allow to happen again. He was such a rough and impatient driver. But all along the about 20 minutes ride, he kept talking about how Nigerians are so impatient on the road and about how everyone was supposed to wait for him to pass before them.
My first real attempt at planting (apart from bean seeds in the glass jar) was to plant yam. I must have been about 4 or 5 years of age. I got the yam set and buried it as expected; I knew it was expected to sprout. The next evening, I went to the location and dug up the seed yam to check if it had started growing. It had not. Cool! So I buried it again. Then the next evening, I went to check it again. It had not. Then the next evening, I dug it up again. Needless to say, the yam never grew. A gracious uncle later explained to me that when you plant, you walk away and wait. You are not expected to keep digging up the seed. Wait!
Have you ever had a little boy give you a toy to fix then come to snatch it from your hands again? Even from childhood, no one wants to wait.
However, life is full of processes with gestation periods. There’s no fast track pregnancy; there’s no way the education of a lifetime could be acquired in a few years; there’s no way a child could grow into adulthood in a few years.
We have to learn to wait since waiting is usually not an option; it is compulsory.
He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts 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. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” Mark 4:26-29
 
 
(pix: http://gods2by4.blogspot.com.ng)