The Fox Who Asked to Be Tamed

In Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince, there is a scene that has quietly instructed readers about patience for over eighty years. A lonely fox approaches the prince and makes an unusual request: "Tame me." When the prince asks what that means, the fox explains that taming is the slow work of establishing ties. Then he gives very specific instructions: "You must be very patient. First you will sit down at a little distance from me — like that — in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day."

Not all at once. A little closer, every day.

There is something profoundly biblical in that fox's wisdom. The Lord does not rush His work in us. He does not force intimacy. He sits with us in the long silences, drawing near at a pace our frightened hearts can bear. James tells us to "let patience have its perfect work" — and the word "perfect" there means complete, fully grown, lacking nothing.

We live in a culture that wants transformation overnight. But the deepest bonds — with God and with one another — are built the way the fox described: showing up faithfully, sitting a little closer, day after day, until what was once wild becomes beloved.

Trust the slow work of the Holy One. He is not finished yet.