The Christian life grows, not hastily like a mushroom or like the speed-sprouting plant over Jonah’s head, but rather like Newton’s oak, a tree buffeted by winds and hailstorms and winters and scorching summers, but firm and resolute from branch to root. Such growth requires patience because Christ “works powerfully, but for the most part gently and gradually.”40 “We are hasty, and would be satisfied at once, but his word is: ‘Tarry thou the Lord’s leisure’” (Pss. 27:14; 37:34).41
