Patience is a virtue we have great difficulty acquiring in this hustle-bustle world. Even when we consciously embrace our spiritual path, it is very common for people to backslide when they perceive their spiritual growth isn't happening fast enough, when all of the questions aren't answered NOW!!!

This week, while dealing with that complaint from someone, the thought of a time-lock vault came to mind. Adopted years ago as a fail-safe measure to keep a bank employee from opening a locked vault under duress, the opening time is programmed into the lock before it is closed for the night. Once set, this time lock cannot be over-ridden by anyone, and there is no way to open the vault before that time arrives.

It occurred to me that Divine Intelligence guides our spiritual growth in a similar manner. Just as we require certain courses to prepare for higher education in our school system, Divine Intelligence seems to require strong foundations for our spiritual lessons. With our limited human perspective, we may think that we are ready to know something, yet no matter how much we implore Holy Spirit, the answer doesn't come at what we consider the appropriate time.

I realized the futility of impatiently demanding spiritual answers NOW is about the same as demanding that the bank's time lock vault open NOW when it happens to be midnight and it is not programmed to open until 8 A.M. Imagine the hilarious picture of someone pounding his fists on the vault door, screaming for it to open NOW, dammit. Even more comical would be the employment of various tactics to FORCE the issue. I can imagine someone collapsing in exhaustion at 7:59 A.M. after pounding the vault door with a sledgehammer all night, not knowing that the vault door will effortlessly swing open in one minute.

Funny picture, isn't it???