Living the Moment to the Fullest
Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict.
Patience is not a waiting passivity until someone else does something.
Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later and somewhere else.
Let’s be patient and trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.
—Henri J M Nouwen, Bread for the Journey
Patience is more than enduring delay—it’s a spiritual discipline that invites us to be fully present in the now. Henri Nouwen challenges the notion that life’s meaning lies just beyond reach—tomorrow, elsewhere, in someone else’s hands. Instead, patience teaches us to believe that what we long for is already here, beneath our feet.
To be patient is to trust that God is at work even in silence, even in stillness, even when nothing seems to be happening. Rather than escape the moment, we are called to inhabit it, believing the treasure we seek is not far off, but hidden in the very ground we’ve been given to stand on today. —DH
—David Hoskins, Founder & Care Guide, Sanctuary Clinics