The Wisdom of Not Being Hasty

In J.R.R. Tolkien's The Two Towers, the hobbits Merry and Pippin find themselves among the Ents — ancient, tree-like shepherds of the forest. When the hobbits urge Treebeard to act quickly against the evil threatening Middle-earth, the old Ent replies with his famous counsel: "Don't be hasty." The Entmoot, their gathering to decide what to do, stretches on for days. To the hobbits, who feel the urgency of war pressing in from every side, the deliberation is agonizing. Yet when the Ents finally move, they move with a power that reshapes the landscape itself, tearing down the fortress of Isengard stone by stone.

Tolkien understood something pastors know well: urgency and impatience are not the same thing. The hobbits wanted a quick decision, and who could blame them? But Treebeard knew that a thing done too hastily is a thing done poorly — and that patient deliberation, rooted in deep wisdom, produces an unstoppable force when the moment finally arrives.

James writes, "Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." The Lord is never slow in the way we fear. He is thorough. He is building something in us that cannot be torn down.

When you feel like God is taking too long, remember the Ents. The waiting is not wasted. What the Almighty is preparing in the silence will shake the very foundations when it finally moves.