Hurry has actually become a sickness, a disease for us in the U.S…which is ironic with all these “time savers” we have. “Time magazine noted that back in the 1960s, expert testimony was given to a subcommittee of the Senate on time management. The essence of it was that because of the advance in technology, within twenty years or so people would have to radically cut back on how many hours a week they worked, or how many weeks a year they worked, or else they would have to start retiring sooner. The great challenge, they said, was what people would do with all of their free time.” That was forty years ago…would you say you struggle with what to do with all of your free time? Unless you’re retired you’re probably thinking yeah right. Unfortunately we don’t have more free time, our lives haven’t slowed down since the 60’s, they’ve sped up, and we can’t seem to fit enough into our days. We have less time available because we are trying to do too much, and we wonder where all the time goes.
Think of all the technology and resources we have and we still can’t fit it all in. We have washing machines and dishwashers so we don’t have to do wash by hand. We have microwaves to cook with because the stove is too slow. When that isn’t fast enough we have a whole category of restaurants called fast food because we don’t have time to prepare a meal even with a microwave. Since fast food wasn’t fast enough we invented the drive thru window so we could get it even faster. At one point McDonalds was guaranteeing that they could get you through in 30 seconds from the time you ordered your meal to the time you picked it up. Dominoes became famous for promising to deliver you a pizza within 30 minutes of ordering. That is until several of their drivers got in trouble for speeding and driving hazardously getting the pizzas there in time.
The meal is the perfect comparison of how we have become hurry sick. Contrast this to dining in other places around the world. When Amy and I were in Europe we went to eat at a restaurant shortly after arriving and I remember sitting down to eat, we didn’t have to wait too long and the waitress came and gave us a menu. Then what seemed liked 20 minutes later the waitress finally returned to take our order. After what seemed like an hour we finally received our food. The whole dining experience took over an hour and a half. I remember being very frustrated at the “lousy service” at the restaurant. After eating several meals this way I learned that meals in their culture is an experience, it is not something you hurry through to get to the next thing, it is the main event. Eating quality food, spending time fellowshipping with others is a priority for them, kind of like…in Jesus’ day when a meal was important. Read the gospel accounts, eating a meal together was a big deal. Listen to what the Bible says about the first Christians:
NIV Acts 2:46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,
How often do you spend time as a family eating at least one meal a day together catching up on your day? Not very many because we have other things we have to get to. We are so programmed by American culture to hurry, to fit more into my day, that we sometimes miss the things which are really important, particularly our relationships with other people and our relationship with God.
This is the problem, when we live a hurried lifestyle it is virtually impossible for God to work within us to help us grow spiritually. Let me remind you what spiritual growth is, our sermon series is focusing on growing spiritually: spiritual growth is receiving God’s grace to know him better (in other words it’s relational) and maturing to be more like him (we reflect Jesus’ character and actions, doing what he would do). If we are living our lives in a hurry we don’t spend time with God and therefore we prevent God from sowing his grace, his spiritual fruits into our lives, fruits of love, joy, peace, etc.. John Ortberg writes, “Love and hurry are fundamentally incompatible. Love always takes time, and time is one thing hurried people don’t have.”
God tells us in our memory verse in Psalm 46 “be still and know that I am God.” Being still is exactly the opposite of hurry. Carl Jung once said, “Hurry isn’t the work of the devil, it is the devil.” I wouldn’t agree 100% with that but we can probably agree that the most successful temptation the devil can muster against us today is to keep us so hurried we do not have time left to nurture our relationship with God and with other people. We leave no room for God in our schedule.
We are trying to fit too much into our lives and our families schedules, and it’s killing us spiritually, we see no change in our life as a result. Sometimes we may even be busy doing good things thinking we are doing God’s work. We may be serving the Lord or helping other people, at church, in the school, coaching a sports team. These are good things, but are we finding time to be still before God? Remember the sisters Mary and Martha? Mary sat at the feet of Jesus, while Martha ran around like a chicken with her head cut off trying to serve Jesus, getting frustrated all the while. Serving Jesus had lost its joy for Martha. What did Jesus say to Martha? He said, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset over many things, but only one things is necessary and Mary has chosen the better.” Why had Mary chosen the better? Because she realized the one thing necessary, her relationship with Jesus. She chose not to hurry around and worry. She took time to be at the feet of Jesus. Doing good things like serving Jesus and his followers, can quench our relationship with God and therefore our spiritual growth. God is more interested in our relationship with him than in what we think we need to do for Him.
Hurry isn’t just about doing too much, it is an attitude of the heart. The feeling that I am not doing enough. The hurried person feels guilty when they are not doing something. Even being still before the Lord, listening, praying, seems like a waste of time because nothing gets done. The practice of slowing down our hurried life and being still before God forces us to trust God, that even though I am not getting everything done that I think needs to get done, I am trusting God will take care of it. This isn’t an excuse for laziness, but a realization that I need to find time to be still before God.
You might be suffering from a hurried life if you find yourself at the grocery store checking out and you look for the shortest lane, and then you keep track of where you would have been had you been in the other lane. And then you get happy if you come out ahead of where you would have been, or you brood if you come out behind that other person thinking, “I knew I should have chosen the other lane.” If you find yourself talking on the cell phone, putting on make up (ladies) or shaving (for the guys), all while driving down the road you might be living a hurried life. If you watch TV, talk with someone on the phone, and check your email at the same time you might be living a hurried life.
Living an Unhurried Life
Jesus was busy, but he was never in a hurry, there’s a difference. Jesus was never too busy to lose his focus on what his heavenly Father was doing around him. He was always attentive to God and what God was revealing to him. On several occasions Jesus was busy doing one thing, but noticed the distractions he faced weren’t annoyances but God’s work and he took a short detour. For example Jesus was walking with a crowd to the home of a synagogue leader whose daughter was sick and dying. While he was walking a woman who had suffered with a hemorrhage for twelve years came up through the crowd and touched his robe believing that if she did that she would be healed (Mk. 5:24-34). Jesus stopped dead in his tracks and looked for the person who had touched him. Even though he was busy on a mission heading somewhere else he stopped to minister to this poor woman. Do you remember what happened to the girl because Jesus stopped? She died. Imagine how her father felt when Jesus stopped to chat with this woman knowing his daughter was dying. Of course Jesus healed his daughter and it had a happy ending. Jesus paid attention to what God was doing. A hurried life won’t pay any attention to what God is doing around them.
In fact, while I was working on this sermon, someone called and I got annoyed because they were disturbing my work. I felt God saying to me, are you too hurried even in your work?
Too often we are so hurried we miss God’s work around us. Therefore we miss out on knowing and experiencing God on a deeper level. In other words, we do not grow spiritually because we are too hurried.
When the car breaks down we are so bothered and in a hurry to get it fixed that we fail to realize there is someone in the waiting room there who God wanted us to minister to. We miss a blessing. How many times have I thought of someone, but I was too busy with other things to call them, only to find out they were going through a difficult time. Or perhaps I was so hurried that I didn’t even give God a chance to place a burden on my heart because my mind was so distracted. I missed a chance to be obedient and experience God’s blessing.
Practicing Slowing
How do we practice slowing?
• Prioritize your schedule
o What is truly important? Does this really need to get done? On a scale of one to five how important is this? Are we prioritizing our daily schedules or are they prioritizing themselves?
• Next time you are in the grocery store, intentionally pick the longest line…and then let someone else in front of you.
• Don’t wear a watch or carry your cell phone for a day
• Find time for solitude
The Need for Solitude
Jesus’ regular practice of slowing included solitude. It says in Luke 5:16
“But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” Jesus regularly got away from the busyness and hurry to spend time with his Father.
Part of slowing means we need solitude. We need to get away from the crowds and our busy, hurried schedules, to a solitary place. Solitude isn’t just being alone, there are plenty of people who spend time alone, but that doesn’t make it a spiritual practice, rather solitude is being alone with God, making ourselves available to God. It might include reading Scripture or praying, or reflecting on our day but it is being still before God.
When was the last time you got away from the “crowds” by yourself, without the kids, without your spouse, without the cell phone or the daily schedule just to be with God? It could be a solitary place in your home (a special room or chair), or it could be a place outside perhaps in the woods, a hiking trail, barn or garage. Would those close to you say, like Luke said about Jesus, “he or she often withdraws to lonely place and prays.”
When we get away from society we discover freedom from the mold society imposes upon us. Society imposes hurry and busyness, and many other priorities which are not of God. Getting away helps us refocus, reflect, and listen for God’s voice which guides us into all truth, to express our love for God.
I’m ending the sermon time a little early today because I want us to spend a few minutes in silence, being still before God. We will spend the next five minutes before we celebrate communion in silence being still before God. This may seem like forever, you may feel a little uncomfortable if you are not accustomed to it, but think of it as practice in slowing. You can pray, you can read the Bible (they are available in your pew if you didn’t bring one), you can reflect on your spiritual life perhaps your hurried life, or you can just empty your thoughts and listen for God’s voice. You can sit in your pew, you can be on your knees, you can come to the altar. Spend your time being still before God in the way you feel led.
[After 5 minutes of silence]
How did it feel being still for five minutes? Did it feel like it lasted forever? Was it uncomfortable? Did it feel like a waste of time? Were you able to listen to God? Did you find yourself thinking of all the things you had to do today in your busy life? I used this exercise to demonstrate to us how seldom we are still before God because of our hurried life.
