Why is it so difficult to give up old perceptions when it is clear that what we really know is only a fraction of what there is to be known? The tiny fraction we see is not the only way it is. Whenever we say, "I know it," it means that we no longer want to struggle with other ways of seeing it. But the way we once saw it may not be the way it is now. Certainly the way something is now does not determine that it will always be that way because we are, all of us, on a journey whose ultimate destination is unknown.
Prayer trains the soul to singleness of focus: for God alone my soul waits. Another will is greater, wiser and more intelligent than my own. So I wait. Waiting means that there is another whom I trust and from whom I receive. My will, important and essential as it is, finds a will that is more important, more essential... In prayer we are aware that God is in action and that when the circumstances are ready, when others are in the right place and when my heart is prepared, I will be called into action. Waiting in prayer is a disciplined refusal to act before God acts. Waiting is our participation in the process that results in the "time fulfilled".