In the fall, I preached a sermon series through the New Testament book of Philippians. The theme was “Finding Joy in a Stress-Filled World.” In preparing for one of these messages, I remember reading an excerpt from John Ortberg’s book, The Life You’ve Always Wanted.
Ortberg talked about the practice of “slowing”—“cultivating patience by deliberately choosing to place ourselves in positions where we simply have to wait” (p. 83). His examples stuck out in my mind:
- Deliberately drive in the slow lane on the highway.
- Chew and eat your food slower.
- Find the longest line at the grocery store and stand in it, ignoring how quickly the other lines are moving.
Why in the world would anyone do this? Because “hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day” (p. 77).
We are addicted to hurry.
According to Dr. Meyer Friedman, the cardiologist who pioneered studies on Type A personality, stress, anger, and heart disease, we suffer from “hurry sickness”—“a continuous struggle and unremitting attempt to accomplish or achieve more and more things or participate in more and more events in less and less time, frequently in the face of opposition, real or imagined, from other persons” (p. 78).
Friedman gave this diagnosis of American life in 1984. Things have only gotten worse since then.
While on Christmas vacation, I had the opportunity to read the entirety of Ortberg’s book. (It is a good one and I would recommend it.) Reading back over the section on “slowing,” I realized that, with my ruptured Achilles, the Lord is giving me a crash course on the subject.
All of life has slowed down for me. Getting ready in the morning takes longer. Walking is slower. Accomplishing tasks takes more time. And getting up in the middle of the night to go the bathroom takes forever!
This past Sunday at church I had to walk up to my seat using my crutches. I was trying to obey the therapist and keep putting weight on my foot. This reduces my walking pace to a crawl. I can scoot faster on crutches if I just pick up my lame foot and move. But I chose to walk slowly. It was amazing the number of people I could meet and greet during that time. I got to my seat late…but enjoyed the stroll.
Slowing is not easy in our culture. We are ruled by the clock. I wonder what life was like before people wore wristwatches. I suppose that people had more time for one another. Tasks were less rushed. Appointments and meeting times were more general and loose in their starting and ending.
I remember spending two summers in Central America on mission trips. The Hispanic culture down there was less dictated by hurry and stress. Church started around 9am and continued until they were done. No one checked their watches…except us Americans. Fellowship and relationship were more important than the time-conscious pull to do more and more things in less and less time. Half the time we don’t even know where we are going or what we have to do…we just know that we have to get there or do it in a hurry.
I am starting to rebel against the hurry and hyper-drive of American culture…and the American church. I have to. I am becoming too burnt out, too driven by tasks, too stressed. Perhaps that is why the Lord “caught my heel”—not to trip me up but to slow me down.
God is not in a hurry. Indeed “a day to Him is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day” (2 Peter 3:8). This is not a mathematical formula but a simple statement that God is not dictated by time. He operates above time. He created time as a servant not a taskmaster.
As God’s children, we are called to “number our days” (Psalm 90:12) and “make the most of every opportunity” (Colossians 4:5). We are not called to stress ourselves out with endless tasks or with a feverish rush to accomplish more and more things. Our addiction to hurry, instant spirituality, quick fixes, and steroidal church growth are not indications of a healthy church but a sick one.
It takes time—deliberate time, slow time—for “the tree planted by rivers of water” (Psalm 1) to be planted in God’s soil, to become rooted in God’s Word, to be nourished by the water of the Spirit, to meditate and contemplate God’s glory, to produce the fruit of God’s character.
Weeds grow fast. Trees take their time.
Or as Ortberg notes, “Following Jesus cannot be done in a sprint. If we want to follow someone, we can’t go faster than the one who is leading” (p. 79).
And the One who is leading has told us…
28“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
Lord, help me to slow down. To walk not sprint. To rest not race. To redeem the time not rush it. To savor life not overschedule it. And, Lord, if I start going 55 mph in an Autoban world, please keep me from being run over.
