Suddenly comes slowly sometimes

I was thinking last night about a poem I enjoy. Google says it’s by Billy Collins, but I really feel like it isn’t.

The lamb may lie down with the lion,
But they will never be as close as this pair
Who share the very lines
Of their existence, whose overlapping is their raison d’etre.
How strange and symbiotic the binds
That make one disappear
Whenever the other is spied.
Throw the duck a stare,
And the rabbit hops down his hole.
Give the rabbit the eye,
And the duck waddles off the folio.
Say, these could be our mascots, you and I –
        I could look at you forever
        And never see the two of us together.

 

 

I was thinking about this poem because Caroline, one of our squad leaders, mentioned last night that God many times does not work quickly, but He does work suddenly. And I thought of this rabbit/duck picture. Many people see only the rabbit or the duck to begin. And after looking and looking and looking, suddenly something changes. Suddenly, they see both the rabbit and the duck. And after they can see them both, they can never go back to not seeing both animals again.

 

 I’ve seen this in other things, too. As a child, I loved those 3-D pictures, the Magic Eye pictures. To start, it looks like a plain pattern. Then, as your eyes adjust and you look harder, an image within the pattern appears. Suddenly, you see what you didn’t see before. A whole new realm, so to speak, has been shown to you.

 

  

 

Or how when watching a movie, everyone knows that the two best friends should end up together, but the two characters themselves don’t see it. Then, one day, after years of friendship and fights and lost loves, they look at each other. Suddenly, it clicks. They love each other, and they can never go back to how it was before, because everything has changed. Oh, they will have to work at their love and continue to grow in it, but now they understand.

 

So, I loved that Caroline said that God works suddenly, because it’s something I’ve always thought, but have never been able to put words to. God works deliberately, bringing us to certain places, times, people and circumstances, slowly (perhaps) equipping us to be ready for that proverbial Aha! moment, where things click and we make sense of something we didn’t understand before.

 

Maybe that is what has been happening to me this month… and the many months and years before that have led up to now. Slowly, I’ve come to realize that the truths I used to scoff out now mean something to me. I am redeemed. I am transformed. I am loved and chosen and annointed and appointed and so many other truths that the Bible affirms. Paul didn’t flippantly say things, nor did any other author within the Bible. When God said that the Israelites would be His people, and that He would be their God, He wasn’t kidding. Jesus changed it to be for Gentiles, too. We are His people; He is our God. He loved us enough to die for us, and to rise again for us. My life has been bought at a price, I am no longer my own.

 

Suddenly, these things really, truly mean something to me. Suddenly, my worth isn’t from whether or not my face is clearing up today or if I can be the best at something or how high of a test score I can get. My worth comes from God alone. And now that I know/believe this, I can’t go back to how it used to be. I have to fight, sure, and I have to include others in my fight to help me along, but I’m seeing both the rabbit and the duck now. And I can’t go back to when I couldn’t see anymore.