DO YOU NEED TO SLOW DOWN?

I find it curious that I have not yet learned to tread lightly (excluding the big stick of course) but my usual modus operandi is a “Bull in a China shop.” I speed up faster than others can keep up, pounding the feet ever harder. Occasionally I may even notice the minutes pounding by harder as well but, I don’t believe I pay them any mind. When I look back I think I can say, with confidence that the hurry more, often hurts than helps. It may even have a way of emptying our soul. It’s like running a race against time, but you snag yourself on time and you end up leaking yourself empty. You might even say that hurry and impatience is a sure sign of one who has a lot of maturing to do and I extend this to not only in doing but in Faith, Prayer and in all that we are.

We live in a consumer society, so quicker is better, faster is always preferred and more now is what the world tells us we should want. We even view our faith the same way, God I need patience but give it to me now. Think of all the missed moments that lay in our wake because we were too busy hurrying along. We didn’t miss them, we threw them away with our choice to be moving at such high velocities so we could get to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of us.

I recall a conversation I had with my grandmother. She said she isn’t doing too many things these days since she is slow to get around and doesn’t want to be an annoyance. That is a lie the world tells us and we believe it. In this example all we have to do is look to our movies and TV shows, they joke about putting the elderly into homes because that is what is best for them. Is it really or is it better for us? Now I am not talking about putting our parents and grandparents in a home, that’s not the point here. The way the world might have us see it, the elderly have committed two offenses just by existing. One is a lack of velocity, they drive too slowly, they walk too slowly, and they talk too slowly. We can abide so many other maladies and atrocities but being slowed down isn’t one of them. The other is an age old issue, the elderly are our memento mori and we can only be comfortable if they are out of sight which helps our denial.

When middle age has left us, does the accumulation of physical ailments leave us condemned to the ranks of the undead? We treat slowness like a disease of the undead. Anyway isn’t it about belief and attitude and not years, the proffers of salvation know no age. There is many a person that is youthful hurrying about in their lives who can be called undead, their inner putrification hidden for a few decades at least, unless they change their beliefs and attitude.

So the question that I am left with is: how do I change this? Is it possible that living in Christ, the most urgent necessitates a slow and steady reverence? And that living in Christ we are not running out of time but we are standing on the brink of eternity? If the purpose of a Christian is to know God and to praise Him, then wouldn’t it stand to say that relationship is the most important thing (Matthew 7:22-23), of course it is, we know this! Relationship takes time, it is a slow process, a process that is stunted and even stopped when we run about in a hurry from thing to thing and person to person. It’s time to take a deep breath, slow down, give God the glory, sing His praises, live life purposefully, savoring every moment, living fully in what we are doing right now with gratitude and giving thanks for what God has done and continues to do in our lives.