My idea of when something is due and other people's (including God's) idea of when something is due are often worlds apart.

How much is "due time" for the car in front of me at the light to move when the light turns green?  One second? Two, if I am gracious?

When is "due time" when we have invested much time and energy in a person's life - when is the fruit due?

When is the "due time" for true peace and comfort when one has experienced the loss of a child, spouse, parent - or multiple losses of such? 

When is the "due time" for being accepted and loved as one is, after years of feeling on the outside, different, flawed, unattractive, unlovable?

When is the "due time" when someone is selfish, manipulative, possessive, and controlling in their relationships?  When do they receive the painful consequences that are due them?

What is good should be blessed and what is bad should be punished, right?  Otherwise what's the point of doing good?
I read Psalm 37 this morning for my devotional time as one of the lectionary selections.  The whole Psalm is dedicated to what many of us struggle with - will righteousness prevail, and if so, when?  The conclusion of the Psalmist is that, yes, righteousness will always prevail, wickedness will come to naught, but he gives no reassurance of when this will become evident, although in verse two he implies that it will be soon, like grass withering:  "they will soon fade like the grass, and wither like the green herb." That's not long. 

When God says, It will happen soon" what in the world does that mean?  If "a day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day" (II Peter 3:8) what is "soon?"  A day?  Three hundred years?

I work with many marriages that are falling apart.  This is most often terribly painful - not very many people get married with the idea that it won't last, and I venture to say that those that do just about always experience the reality that it doesn't.  But, unfortunately, those with a high degree of commitment to "as long as we both shall live" also run into things that seriously threaten their marriages.

Because a good connection, a sense of mutual companionship with one's spouse is so basic to a married person's sense of well-being, when that relationship runs into the kind of trouble that threaten the foundation of the relationship, it is incredibly difficult to do what is right, regardless of what the other is doing or saying because that gets the focus off of what we want from the other and it may seem all is lost unless the spouse changes, and we may set out to see that that happens. 

Sometimes I hear the phrase in working with one of a couple, "I know I need to let go of him/her."  I feel hopeful when I hear that since I know that person is coming to see that their "holding on" is in some way getting in the way of their own personal freedom to live and do what is right and is keeping something going in the relationship that is destructive to that relationship.

Often that "letting go" has to do with timing.  People often actually do change, but not before it is time.  And most often people don't deeply or genuinely change as long as someone else lives as if they must change.  Love never forces another to change, since any change in response to force is not love - it is compliance - a "you can have my body (my externals) but you won't get my heart and soul" sort of thing.

What kind of perspective does it take to move from not wanting to wait to wanting to wait?  Perhaps when we experience the consequences of our impatience in ourselves (being torn up all the time on the inside) or in a relationship (the other seems to move further from us) we are moved to consider patience as a life-giving gift, as a Spirit-fruit that we'd like to both eat and share with others.

"God, this all sounds so good.  I want to rest fully in the truth that nothing or no one needs to change for me to live life well and to do what I am meant to do - live in a spirit of love and truth in relation to myself and others.  Your work of refining this in me is painful, I must confess, and sometimes I hate it at the time.  Renew my passion to live with the conviction that nothing is more powerful than righteousness and love. Through your Son who lived it, Amen"

I work with individuals, couples, and families to identify the ways of life and death in their lives and help uncover the motivation to choose that which leads to life, whether it be through counseling or spiritual direction.  - Sheldon Swartz, MA/LMFT