In her book Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus, Lois Tverberg retells the following story about a famous first century rabbi named Rabbi Akiva:

One day as Rabbi Akiva was shepherding his flocks, he noticed a tiny stream trickling down a hillside, dripping over a ledge on its way toward the river below. Below was a massive boulder. Surprisingly, the rock bore a deep impression. The drip, drip, drip of water over the centuries had hollowed away the stone. Akiva commented, "If mere water can do this to hard rock, how much more can God's Word carve a way into my heart of flesh?" Akiva realized that if the water had flowed over the rock all at once, the rock would have been unchanged. It was the slow but steady impact of each small droplet, year after year, that completely reformed the stone.

Lois Tverberg comments:

When I first started studying the Bible's Hebraic context, I wanted one commentary that would teach me everything, one class that would explain it all. If I could learn all the "right answers" in one marathon event, all the better. I find now that God likes to reveal truth over many years, as I study alongside others. I realize now that big "splashes" aren't usually God's way of doing things. Instead, through the slow drip of study and prayer, day after day, year after year, he shapes us into what he wants us to be.