Impatience Is the Enemy of Thought

Transcript

Ray's new botany teacher handed him a river plant and told him to study its leaves, roots, and blossom. Fifteen minutes later, Ray turned in several hasty sketches with a few notes. The professor looked at them and said, "You've only started."

Annoyed, Ray picked up a microscope and looked again. He handed in a few more notes. The professor repeated, "You've hardly begun." So Ray slowed down. And in the next four days, with one plant, Ray became fascinated with veining, leaf arrangements, and stem channels.

This is Howard Butt, Jr., of Laity Lodge. The sculptor Rodin said that slowness is beauty. Ray Baker learned that impatience kills learning. Consider how your pace affects your perception—in the high calling of our daily work.

We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

( Heb 5:11-14)