Things We Have to Leave to Time

If we were to call for self-confession, we might well have a large showing of hands from those who have sometime planted seeds but who couldn’t wait for shoots to show above the surface and so have dug them up to see what they were doing. But we cannot dig up the seed and have a harvest or break open a bud and have a flower. We have to leave some things to time. When someone is confined with illness or injury, his first question is, “How long will it last?” The seasoned physician will sometimes say, “A few days,” when he knows full well it will likely be much longer, but he tries to fit the forecast to the endurance of the man who is down. We can help the healing process; but, despite the pressure of our impatience, there is much we have to leave to time. Sometimes we see someone who seems to be “getting away with something” without prevention or punishment, and we may feel that justice is unreasonably slow as well as blind. But time overtakes all offenses and offenders⎯sometimes sooner than we suppose. Sometimes we see people we are impatient to improve. But we can’t force the minds of men. We can teach, persuade, and persevere, and set before them a convincing example⎯ and leave the rest to time. Of course we can’t leave everything to time. We can’t condone complacency. We must actively oppose the intrusion of every evil. We must earnestly be about our business and be anxiously engaged in a good cause. We must plant when it is time for planting or we shall have no harvest. But having done the best we can do, we must learn to leave what we can’t do to the growing, developing, mending, mellowing process of time. And if we have faith enough, patience enough, perseverance enough, time will work many wonders. It will reveal truth and discredit untruth. It will silence slander. IT will soften many sorrows. It will heal many wounds⎯wounds of the flesh, of the heart, of the mind and of the spirit. It will right many wrongs. It will bring compensation, retribution, vindication. And even if in our time we don’t find all the answers, immortal men can afford to have faith in the limitless future⎯if we do each day what can and should be done and leave to time what time alone can do.