Transitions and Patience

I'm sitting in a room of young adults...twenty-somethings is the word I believe that is often applied to them...that's rather obscure and impersonal if I do say so myself. We are gathered for a time of reflection, meditation on scripture, and prayer. This half hour time in the mornings vary between nice soul preparation time for the day ahead to can we get this over with as quickly as possible. Today is a good time of reflection. It actually started on my morning jog with Tully. It snowed last night...the first snow of the year, even if it was only a dusting that left a few blotches of white dust on the back hill and in the field across the street to see...it still was the first snow.
Tully was enjoying the run. He scampered back and forth in front of me, behind me, from side to side. His joy was only interrupted by the excitement of chasing up a rabbit that moments before we arrived had probably been enjoying the comfort and warmth of its nest. Not after Tully and I showed up. He lurched rather suddenly from what moments before seemed to be just grass and ran across the lawn to escape the giant and his large hunting animal. Tully was taken quite aback..."what in the world was that" was suddenly, instinctively something he wanted in his mouth and he pulled the leash as far as he could go before realizing that I wasn't going to chase after that "thing", whatever it was. He kept running looking back at me wondering why I didn't want to go after it. I smiled and we kept running on.
For some reason, I began to think about that and how my tendency to run after things in life that aren't really worth it. I wondered if God had me on some sort of leash! Nah...it's freedom that marks us as his creation, not being an animal to control. Tully just doesn't know it is worthless to chase the rabbit, and to use the old expression...."You wouldn't know what to do with it if you caught it anyway." The problem with me is that I think I know what to do with everything I chase after.
While jogging, my mind goes in all sorts of direction. I pray some, but I also think. I began to think about transitions and patience. We use that word transition for all sorts of things. We use it of a woman in labor who goes into transition...which means a lot of pain...intense pain because the baby is coming down the birth canal and is about to be born. We use transition to talk about times in our lives when one season ends and another begins. For me transitions in life are sometimes painful, and need the tethering...the leashing of God. "A man's wisdom gives him patience..." (Proverbs 19:11). I've been in a two year period of transition. The hard part about transiton is that it does involve a certain amount of pain...birth always involves pain. It's mainly good...sometimes I wonder if I'm running after things that are worthless...hoping that I really am on God's leash...and praying for wisdom and patience.