26th April 2021

“What is the fastest animal?” posed a roadside sign designed to bust fatigue. The peregrine falcon said son number one, which son number two confirmed by announcing that it could reach speeds of 300 km per hour during one of its bombing runs. (I had offered the cockroach as my answer, which I’m still prepared to defend.) Our car discussion then ranged to the slowest animal, and so forth, until we were wide awake and were no longer a hazard on the road.

I was reminded of our conversation during a song we sang at church yesterday. There was a line that read this way, on the subject of the character of God: ‘Slow to chide and swift to bless’. There I thought, was both the slowest and fastest things on earth, or more technically, shown to those of us who live on earth. The patience of God and the generosity of God – the first so wonderfully slow, and the second, so incredibly fast.

The Book confirms the answer. In that scene early in Genesis, when God came to chide our first parents, He came not in some volcanic rage, but in the cool of the day, for He is ‘slow to anger’ says the Book. And in that Easter scene, when Thomas finally confessed that the Lord had risen indeed, Jesus’ responsive blessing came lightning fast, for He is swift to respond to humble faith. And those two facts ought to chase the spiritual sleepiness from any tired eye.

DM 26^th April 2021