I don’t know about you, but I am such a slow learner. Some things come quite easily but many of the really important lessons in life concerning love, grace, mercy, faith, and forgiveness, etc. take a long time to learn and even then it seems that periodically I need to relearn them once again. Yet, on reflection, this is the stuff of life. I think that part of the reason for this is that we each need to revisit and relearn the same old lessons over and over again because it is part of the deepening process. It is part of the process of getting the really important things to penetrate deep into the essence of whom we are. So, that we are shaped by them and slowly conformed or reformed into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ. So often we are in a hurry; however, God rarely is and we need to learn to be patient with God’s long-term project of inner transformation. I recognise that sometimes we seem to make huge leaps forward while at other times it seems as if we are treading water for spiritual transformation rarely moves at a steady pace even for those whose temperament is so inclined in that direction. Inner transformation is certainly helped by a disciplined process of spiritual formation, but even then there are ups and downs, times of progress and times of stagnation for we are not machines and God’s workings are more organic in nature than mechanical. Like, the cycles of nature there are cycles of growth and times of seemingly none growth or dormancy but one rarely happens without the other. It appears to me that the cycles are repeated over and over again as we move to greater conformity to the image and likeness of Jesus Christ.