Slowing Down
When You’re Running On Empty
Ecclesiastes 4:4-8
John Ortberg tells the story of calling a wise friend to ask for some spiritual direction not long after moving to Chicago. I described the pace of life in my current ministry. The church where I serve tends to move at a fast clip. I also told him about our rhythms of family life: we are in the van-driving, soccer-league, piano-lesson, school-orientation-night years. I told him about the present condition of my heart, as best I could discern it. What did I need to do, I asked him, to be spiritually healthy? Long pause. "You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life," he said at last. Another long pause. "Okay, I’ve written that one down," I told him, a little impatiently. "That’s a good one. Now what else is there?" I had many things to do, and this was a long-distance call, so I was anxious to cram as many units of spiritual wisdom into the least amount of time possible. Another long pause. "There is nothing else," he said. "You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life."
You don’t have to be a prophet to know that technology has ¬¬made three things happen in the world. Our world has gotten smaller. Our world has gotten more complex and our world has sped up. You live a much faster lifestyle than your parents or grandparents did. And the way the world is going, your children will live an even faster lifestyle than you did. And on top of that, we keep trying to do more and more. It’s taking a toll on us. USA Today writes. “Today people are souped up, stressed out, and over scheduled. In this brave new world, boundaries between work and family are disappearing. Everybody is mobile and every moment is scheduled. The day care, school, after school activities and 10-12 hour workdays.” This fast paced, pressure cooker lifestyle is so new to the human race that anthropologists are now studying to see how it will affect us long term. The Bible tells us that all this hurrying has dramatic negative effects on us.
First, you feel more stress. The Bible says, “Overwork makes for restless sleep.” When you’re always in a hurry, your personal reserves get depleted and your stress goes way up. You have to periodically slow down. There’s nothing wrong with going fast unless you never slow down. You’re not the energizer bunny. Just going and going and going causes stress in your life.
Second, when you run at a high speed, you lose your joy. The faster you go in life, the less time you have to enjoy it. You’ve got to slow down to do that. I’ve noticed when I fly at 350 miles an hour I don’t enjoy the scenery at all. When I drive at 70 miles mph, I enjoy it a little bit but I miss the details. We’re going too fast. But if I really want to enjoy a town or a city, I walk through it. It is in walking that you get the sights and sounds and smells, the details. Enjoyment comes when you slow down. If you are continually fast paced, you’re not really enjoying anything. You may think you are but you’re not really enjoying it because you miss the details.
Third, when you’re going at a fast pace, you’re less productive. Every creative person knows this. The faster you go, the less productive you really are. The law of diminishing returns says you must pace yourself. Going fast all the time causes you to lose the ability to think and act creatively. Fourth, when I’m going too fast, I can’t hear God. If you’re moving at a fast pace in your life all the time, you don’t know God because you can’t know anyone in a hurry. Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God.” You get to know God when you slow down, be quiet and become still. When you’re not still all your circuits are busy and you can’t hear God. All that activity creates too much noise in your life. If you don’t slow down, you will never get to know God. The only way to do that is by being still, having times of quiet, solitude, and intentional inactivity in your life.
So how can you slow down? The strategies I’m going to share with you today to slow down your life to a more rational, reasonable pace are counter-culture. They’re the exact opposite of what our culture teaches and encourages. But if you do these things you will find the joy going up and the stress going down in your life.
First, learn contentment. If you’re serious about slowing down don’t start with your schedule, start in the heart. Paul wrote in Philippians 4 “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” You are not by nature a contented person, neither am I. It is our nature to want things to be different, to want them to be better, to want them to be something other than they are. But if you’re going to slow down your life, you have to learn contentment. It’s learned over time. How do you do that? Paul says “There is great gain in godliness with contentment. For we brought nothing into the world and we can’t take anything out of the. So if we have food and clothing we will be content with that.” Paul reminds us life isn’t about things. I didn’t have anything before I was born. I’m not going to have anything after I die. So while I can use things while here on earth, contentment comes when realizing I don’t need more in order to be happy. There are three myths of our culture which encourage this attitude of discontent in our lives. First, having more will make me happy. That’s just not true. People who have won the lottery have all ended us less happy than before. Jesus said it like this, “A man’s life consists not in the abundance of things he possesses.” Luke 12:15
The second myth is that doing more will make me more worthy. In other words, if I do more, people will love me more. I’ll be more valued, appreciated, admired and better respected. We try to prove our worth by our work. If you get your work and your worth confused, you’re going to be stressed out and running on empty because you’re going to be running at a fast pace your entire life trying to prove yourself and gain other’s respect. There is this belief that doing more will make me more important. And that the busier I am the more important I am. That’s just not true. What you find behind almost all high achievers is high insecurity and a longing for approval of others. Ecclesiastes 4:6 “It’s better to have only a little, with peace of mind, than to be busy all the time with both hands, trying to catch the wind.” Having more doesn’t make me happier and doing more doesn’t make me more worthy.
The third myth in our culture is that life is a competition. It’s not. The fact is you’re not in competition with anybody, not your neighbor, not your siblings, not your boss, not your friends. Not anybody. Why? Because you are unique. There’s nobody in the world like you. You have a unique thumbprint, unique fingerprint, unique eye print, a unique voiceprint. Everything about you is unique. Nobody has even been made just like you or ever will be just like you. Since you’re unique, God doesn’t make you to be in competition with anybody else. He wants you to be you. So quit trying to be like everybody else and stop comparing yourself to other people. That only creates envy which fosters jealousy, discouragement and pride. Comparing and contentment are mortal enemies. Every time you start comparing anything in your life – your boyfriend, your front lawn, your car, your job– you immediately start getting discontented. If you’re serious about slowing down your life, you’ve got to stop comparing your life to others because only then can you start being content. And once you start being content, you can actually start slowing down and living a sane, humane life.
Second, listen before speaking. You may not realize this but your mouth actually controls the pace of your life. The speed and how you talk to other people actually influences your heart rate and your stress level. It’s very obvious if you watch television that we have become a nation of interrupters. Have you noticed that? People don’t let others complete their sentences. They talk over each other. You see and hear it all over. People interrupt each other. It seems that everybody’s talking and nobody’s listening. Why is that? Why has America gotten so rude? One of the answers is because of the speed of life. We have become so impatient that we’re unwilling to let other people finish a thought. So we butt in. We’re so eager to say our piece, to get our point across, that we won’t even take the time to let somebody finish a thought before we interrupt. James 1:19 “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak….” If you are quick to listen, and if you learn to be slow to speak, your life will slow down. Proverbs 29:20 says “Do you see a man who speaks in haste? [In other words a man who speaks before thinking] There is more hope for a fool than for him.” Slow yourself down. Be in the moment. Be intentional about listening to others and think about what you say.
Once you get the heart and mouth slowed down now you’re ready to work on scheduling.
Third, obey the fourth commandment. The Bible is filled with instructions about healthy living. The 4th Commandment may be the most important of all and is often the most violated: “You have six days in which to do your work, but the seventh day is the day of rest dedicated to Me.” Exodus 20:9 God says I want you to take a day off every week. That’s called the Sabbath, which literally means a day of rest. God not only told us, he modeled it for us. When God made creation, He rested on the 7th day. It’s a commandment and yet it’s so easy to violate, especially if you’re self-employed or even are rebuilding your house. It’s so easy to think, If I just pour in one more day, I’m going to get more out. I’ll just do it for a while. There have been times in my life when I decided for a weeks or months that whatever I was doing was so important that I couldn’t afford to take a day off. So I didn’t. It never worked. I became more irritated with my family. I became more tired and in the end I didn’t get as much done. It was incredibly prideful of me to think that what I was doing at that moment was more important than listening to what God said about how He made me. God created us with an innate need for rest every 7th day.
What do you do on the Sabbath? Three things. First, rest your body. If you don’t take time off your body’s going to make time off. Several weeks ago, I got up early on my day off, went to the gym to workout, I then went to go play golf. I then rushedto get all my errands done so I could pick up the kids from school. We went home and I cut and edged the grass. And an hour later, I was in bed, feeling achy and had a temperature of 102. I thought I had the flu but my body was telling me I was exhausted. I slept for 13 hours and then two days later was finally back to normal. But I learned my lesson. Your best requires rest so take time to rest. If you don’t slow down by choice, circumstances are going to force you to slow down.
Second, recharge your emotions. Sometimes that means disengaging from your hurried lifestyle and spending time just being quiet. Other times it means reconnecting in relationships and just be with other people and enjoying their company. It can also means recreation. That words really means re-creations. Recreation can rejuvenates, if its not too competitive or tiring. Do something that rejuvenates your emotions
Third, refocus your spirit. That’s worship. The Sabbath isn’t taking a day off from God. It’s centering your day and life in God. That means worship. Worship puts life into perspective. Nothing does that more than remembering how great God really is and giving Him the honor and glory He so richly deserves. If I don’t do that regularly, my life becomes centered on me. And if you’re too busy for God, you’re just too busy. You were created to worship God.
It takes work to take a true Sabbath. You have to plan for it and schedule it. It does not happen automatically. It takes a lot of preparation to get everything else done so you can really take a day of rest. Call it a day of Sabbath. If you call it your day off you’re going to be tempted to cheat on it and work on it. If you call it a Sabbath then you’re more likely to keep it because it’s something God has commended you to do. What we’re talking about is not optional. God says in the big ten, taking every seventh day take a day off for God and rest is right up there with, Don’t commit adultery and Don’t murder anybody. That’s how important it is. Keep the Sabbath, rest your body, recharge your emotions and refocus your spirit and focus on God.
Fourth, Pause and pray before making a decision. Now that doesn’t mean wait a year before deciding something. It may be a few days, a or even a few weeks. But it may be just 15-20 seconds but stop before making a decision to ask God, “What do You want me to do, God? Is there anything You want to say to me right now? Give me wisdom.” And you wait. You don’t tell anybody this. You don’t say, “Excuse me a minute. I want to pray.” You keep your eyes wide open while you’re looking at that client, or customer or boss. And then you silently pray, “What do You want me to do, Lord?.” When you stop and pray you get perspective. Perspective helps you make wise decisions. When you pause before making a decision, it’s then that you are slowing down enough to can gain wisdom and guidance from God. Proverbs 19:2 “Zeal without knowledge is not good.” Zeal is enthusiasm. Too often we just rush into decisions. Being enthusiastic without getting all the facts is just plain dumb. It may sound fantastic and you may get excited about it but enthusiasm without getting the facts first is not wise. It leads to bad decisions.
Proverbs continues with “…A person who moves too quickly may go the wrong way.” Any of you know who Roy Regals was? In the 1929 Rose Bowl he recovered a ball and ran 65 yards with it in the wrong direction. He would have scored for the other team if he wasn’t tackled by a teammate. Anybody know who Jim Marshall is? The same thing happened in 1964. Minnesota Vikings were playing the 49ers and Jim recovered the ball and ran 67 yards in the wrong direction and scored for the opposing team. Anybody know who Doug Corrigan is? In 1938, he was going to fly from New York City to Long Beach, CA. He took off and flew through the fog and 26 hours later he landed in Ireland. Zeal – enthusiasm – without knowledge is not good. A person who moves too quickly may go in the wrong direction. “A person in a hurry makes mistakes.” Proverbs 20:25 So deliberate before deciding. Muse before you choose. Reflect before you select. Consider your commitments prayerfully and carefully before you decide. Pause and pray before deciding. The Bible says. “If any of you needs wisdom, to know what you should do, you should ask God, and He will give it to you.” So pray and ask God for wisdom and guidance.
Fifth, you’ve got to give some things up. You just can keep adding things into your life. You’ve got to Ask youself, “What am I going to give up?” That’s the question you should ask before you consider something new. The problem is we don’t know what we should do so we consider all things which come our way. There are some things I’m just lousy at. So the key is to just figure out, What am I good at? What am I shaped by God to do? How has God gifted me and what does God want me to do with my gifts? Don’t worry about the things you’re not good at. Nobody’s good at everything. So you need to know what your strengths are. You will accomplish much more and be much more effective with your life if you concentrate on your strengths and do as much as you can in your area of strength. The second thing is to make a list of your priorities. If you don’t know what matters most, other people will decide for you. You need to decide what matters most. When you know your strengths and your priorities then you can say no to others. Most of us have difficulty doing that but it’s a lot easier when you know how God has gifted you and what your priorities are in life. Don’t know yours? Try these as a starting point: God, marriage, family, church and then job.
Sixth, trust God’s timing. If you’re serious about slowing down your life, you’ve got to learn to trust God’s timing. Discontent is one cause of hurry and impatience is the other. You know what impatience is? It’s a lack of trust. When you’re impatient you’re saying, “God, I don’t really trust You. I don’t think You have my best interest at heart. You don’t know when I need it and I’m in a hurry.” You get worried and you get hurried and you start scurrying because you don’t trust God to do it at the right time in the right way. Ecclesiastes 3:10 says “God does everything just right and on time, but people can never completely understand what He’s doing.” God has a plan for your life but He also has a timetable. And here’s the rub. God never explains His timetable. Doesn’t that frustrate you to no end sometimes? The most painful thing is when you’re in a hurry and God’s not. God says, “These things I plan won’t happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed.” God’s going to act, but only on His timetable, in other words, in His perfect time.
Mark Brunner writes, “Time. As children we have a very difficult time understanding the concept of now and later. Time is always now when we are children. Later is not a concept that we either care about or really even grasp. Children live in the now and have little understanding of the later. Because of their limited comprehension of the concept of time, children find it difficult to work within the bounds that we adults set on it. “It’s time for bed!” We call out as the evening slips into night. But to a child it is only time to be doing what he or she is presently doing. Perceiving that one event is followed by another in a structured sequence is not something easily grasped by a five-year-old anxious to “do” now and not later. And so it is also with us as it concerns balancing our timing against God’s…..It is difficult for us to understand that our focus on the here and now may not be the same focus our Heavenly Father might be taking. His perspective of time is not often one we share. We ask for a blessing or a gift and don’t receive it in the “allotted” time and we’re disappointed, even miffed at God. If God delays an answer for such a long period of time….disappointment can easily become discouragement. We look longingly to the skies in the shadow of our Heavenly Father’s grace and ask impatiently, “Is it time yet?” We ask because….it is what we like and want. We have little regard (for) what might be better for us based on God’s perfect timing. When God is ready, He will do it; not necessarily when we like it but when He deems it is the right time.
Owen Bourgaize tells the story of the director of the George Muller Foundation and their experience of God’s perfect timing in the provision of guidance and resources. The Foundation had been requested to start a new child-care project which would require a great commitment in time and resources. The Trustees decided that they couldn’t go ahead unless they received clear direction from the Lord, and so they committed the need to God in prayer. The day came for a decision to be made, but no definite leading had been received. Then at the hour their meeting a substantial sum was received from a donor earmarked for such a project - and what was more remarkable was that the gift had been designated over 20 years before but because of legal problems over the estate, it had just become available.
