Longsuffering. We’re not good at it, are we? We usually know what we want, and we want it now. Not tomorrow, not the next day, not sometime in the future. NOW, in screaming immediacy.

My wife Gloria and I had a long visit this afternoon with some of her grandchildren and their children. One of those children, a cute little toddler named Kaizen, is four years old and accustomed to having his way—and having it when he wants it

He is well accustomed to turning up his volume to unpleasant levels if he isn’t getting it, so the parents usually let him have it. “No, Kaizen,” they say, “you can’t have that,” or “You can’t do that.” But then the din begins, and they soon weaken and capitulate.

It happen again and again. First, he was denied, but he soon was placated. And sadly, most children today are that way. It is easy to predict what they will be like as adolescents and young adults.

So this excellent book is a timely one. Extremely. And is in fact overdue.

My overwhelming impression, as I read it in manuscript form, was that it simple oozes with patience—and learning to delay one’s gratification with developing an ability to hang on through things for the long haul, with developing the capacity to wait, to endure, and eventually to overcome.

Ours is not a waiting culture, unfortunately. It is always hurrying to get somewhere, to acquire whatever is desired, to reach its goals from the very moment they are identified.

Why is this? It wasn’t this way when I was just a boy—though that was many years ago. People used to be a lot more patient. They understood that they had to wait and pray and work for the things they wanted or needed.

My mother wanted a dishwashing machine, but our family lived in three different homes before she finally got one.

I remember how proud of it she was, and how she loved to show it to her neighbors and to hear them say how wonderful it was, especially when many of them stood longing for the ones they hoped someday to possess.

Life is not that way any longer. Now the credit unions and production companies have persuaded most of us as that we don’t have to wait, that whatever we want is ours the minute we can conceive of having the object of our irresistible desire delivered to our door before we can say, “Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.”

This book is about tempering our resolves, learning to wait patiently in the midst of rushing, never temperament world, and finding joy and meaning in the self-control it advises us to develop.

The author concludes that it has to do with “being fully human.” I like that. We discover our deep and true humanity as we learn to control our impulses and let life flow peacefully and uninterruptedly around us, without giving way to the feverishness of society and the harried pace of a world gone mad.

I confess I needed this book and its reminder of how life and desire can so easily spin out of control when we don’t resolve to wait and observe and let things unfold at their own pace, without any help or impetus from us. I have really needed to slow down and smell the roses.

I needed to let my journey to unfold at its own deliberate pace, and to enjoy the love, the friendships and the opportunities it brings in its own sweet time.

I’ll be better able to do it now.

This book says that, in the end, it’s all about love—about waiting and savoring existence and counting our blessings. Life is full and beautiful without being pushed and tormented to yield its blessings before their time.

“God so loved the world”—and God has given us settings of untold beauty and value, if we only have the patience to see them.

I believe that. And now that I have this wonderful book to return to from time to time, I shall be much better to remember it and to live by it.

Dr. John R. Killinger, Warrenton, Virginia