Slow Start: Pursuing an Unhurried Life

My life has always felt hurried, nearly for as long as I can remember. When I was in junior high and high school it was church activities and mostly homework. Then in college is was 18 credit semesters followed by being a married student.

Looking back, I truly don’t know how I accomplished it all. But I do know that in many ways I neglected relationships, and didn’t have much of a social life.

I was reading today about the life of Jesus. He didn’t rush the start of his ministry, and once he did begin, he never seemed hurried. He had only a few short years to accomplish his purpose on this earth and yet he was purposeful and deliberate in how he lived.

I’m a good starter. I love a new project or idea, it energizes me. Sometimes I get caught up in analysis and research so the ability to just start and not worry about any of those background details can be freeing. But I also tend to feel hurried and frenzied in my work.

Sadly this doesn’t mean that I actually get more done. But it does mean that when I work there is this feeling of desperation, as though I don’t know when I’ll get another chance so I better wring as much out of this moment, this hour, this one solo trip to the cafe to write, as possible.

I am always busy, but I don’t want to be. I always feel as though I am never doing enough and yet I can’t fully engage in all that I do because there is so much.

If I want to become more like Jesus, then I need to walk as he walked, unhurried. John Ortberg said that Jesus embodied a heavenly timefulness. He often had much to do, but he never sacrificed the ability to love. Ortberg also said that love and hurry are incompatible.

What if I focused on doing less, and loving more? This doesn’t mean I can’t have goals or even that I have to give up on my long term aspirations, but that I have to be more deliberate in how I spend my time, and more engaged in the task at hand. As in, mono-tasking.

If I believe that God has a purpose for my life, I can freely choose to focus on the one thing in front of me without worrying about what comes next.

I’ve already lived more years on this earth than Jesus did. Hopefully I have many more, and yet I rush as though I am on the clock. I’m busy but I’m not happy with the work I am accomplishing. I don’t feel invested, and engaged, I feel frantic. This is not the way Jesus lived, and I can’t believe it is how I am called how to live either.

I need to listen more closely to when I am to be still. I’ve been exploring, again, brief periods of silence and stillness as part of my day. This means I appear to be doing nothing, but I am inviting God to direct and redirect me. Those times of stillness provide an opportunity for me to figure out what I should start next.

I do want to start new things, but that doesn’t mean I have to sprint out of the gate. Jesus began his ministry deliberately and slowly, he knew he only had a short time and yet he conducted himself as though he had all the time in the world. He made the people around him feel as though they had his undivided attention.

What if I lived like this? What if I didn’t worry about the next thing on the list or what I have to do tomorrow? What if I wrote the book without also worrying how I will get through the revisions? What if I did the revisions without also stressing out about the marketing? What if I gave my children, my husband, my family, my students, my undivided attention and put out of my mind any other requirements of life, at least for the duration of a conversation?

Start slow, don’t hurry.