Make haste but do not hurry

Hosea 2:16-22; ps 145 the lord is gracious and merciful; mt 9:18-26
 "I will espouse you to me forever: I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy; I will espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know the LORD"

 Yesterday we read the gospel where Jesus was asked to heal the official's daughter from the infirmary of death, "my daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live."

 Jesus rises and follows him. On the way, he encounters a women who had been sick for twelve years and she seeks his touch for healing and whole ness. Jesus is making haste to attend the girl who has died but he is not in a hurry.

 He is attentive to those around him and he gives them the attention they need as they need it. He pauses and not only cures the lady but converses with her. He doesn't dismiss anyone on the way. He makes haste but he is not in a hurry.

 What about us?

 I think of the Alabama song. A few years back the country band came out with a song that went something like the following, "I am in a hurry to get things done; I rush and rush and life is no fun. All I really got a do is live and die, but I'm in a hurry and don't know why."

 How often are we in such a rush, a hurry through life that we dismiss those God puts in our path as we are on our way? How we miss the grace that we long for because our eyes are shut to the needs of those around us because all we see are our own needs.

 We seek to be satisfied and yet we refuse to satisfy others on the way. Like Jesus we pray for the grace to make haste but not get in a hurry that on the way we may be open to receiving the grace filled encounters of those in the path.

 Make haste, but do not hurry.