Our harried, hurried lives prevent us from knowing God, enjoying life and loving others well. We must learn to slow our pace to experience genuine joy.
S-1790
Julie breast feeding Bronwyn during State Denominational meeting: Back and forth between songs and feeding.
Once got in such a hurry that she didn’t get her bra closed all the way.
As Julie told me later: “It was quite an open meeting.”
We are all plagued by hurry. Hurry is not fun. Love and hurry are fundamentally incompatible.
Love always takes time, and time is one thing hurried people don’t have.
Have you ever played the microwave game? I play it every morning.
Oatmeal—two minutes to put in toast, get out knife and spoon, butter and jelly—thank God Julie has already made the bacon. Spread butter and jelly on bread, lay on the bacon and take a bite before the 2 minute bell goes off. I fill the coffee cup and put it in the microwave and have 20 seconds to get the oatmeal and orange juice on the table and return for the coffee before the bell goes off.
Why didn’t I bring the jelly and bacon sandwich the table? I was in a hurry, I ate it while I was waiting on the coffee.
Have you ever stood there and counted down the seconds before the microwave finishes?
Hurry, 5-4-3-2-Oh, that’s enough!”
You know your life is too hurried when you find yourself standing in front of a microwave oven, impatiently tapping his foot and muttering, “Come on, already, come on, hurry up, I don’t have all minute!”
This morning I want to talk with you about the spiritual practices of Slowing and Solitude.
Let me recommend to you John Ortberg’s book, The Life You Always Wanted. Glenn, Jack and I have utilized it as the theological underpinnings for this series.
Many of his insights have enhanced our own understanding of how the nineteen or so spiritual disciplines work for our personal benefits in better enjoying life more than ever.
Let me tell you what I am going to tell you this morning.
- SLIDE #: THE PROBLEM: We Are A People Plagued By Hurry Sickness. Hurry Ruins Living, Loving, Spiritual Life And Joy.
- SLIDE #: THE PRESCRIPTION: The Spiritual Practices Of Slowing And Solitude Are The Antidote To Hurry Sickness.
- SLIDE #: THE RESULT: We Have A Chance To Enter Into The Joy Of The Kingdom Of God On Earth.
Let’s delve a little deeper.
- SLIDE #: THE PROBLEM: We Are A People Plagued By Hurry Sickness. Hurry Ruins Living, Loving, Spiritual Life And Joy.
Jesus was aware of this kind of problem in his day.
- SLIDE #: Mark 6:30-31: The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. 31 Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”
They were so busy that they didn’t even have time to eat.
That could be the motto for people today.
Some people imagine this to be a good thing that perhaps God will reward one day: “What a life you had! You were even too busy to eat. Well done!”
John Ortberg: Here are some SYMPTOMS that we are suffering hurry sickness.
- SLIDE #: Constantly Speeding Up Daily Activities
At a stoplight, if there are two lanes and each contains one car, we will find ourselves guessing – based on the year, make, and model of each car – which one will pull away the fastest.
At a grocery store, if we have a choice between two check-out lines, we find ourselves counting how many people are in each line, multiplying this number by the number of items per cart. And only then do we decide which line to enter.
If we have a really bad case of hurry sickness, even after we get in line, we keep track of the person who would have been me in the other line.
If we get through and the person who would have been me is still waiting, we’ve won. But if that person walks out of the store first. we feel like we lost.
- SLIDE #: Multiple-Tasking
Thought I’d seen everything. Guy in Volkswagen driving to work holding on to steering wheel while eating bowl of Cheerios.
- SLIDE #: Clutter
Julie: “More than three ways for people to get in touch with you.”
“Roger: “For some people that is not clutter!”
Julie: “But, that is the way they live.
Words we never had before: texting, downloading, I-poding, emailing, cell phoning, face booking, tweeting, tivoing, skyping
- SLIDE #: Superficiality
Perhaps one reason that Abraham Lincoln achieved the depth of thought he did is that he grew up with access to very few books:
Lincoln often spoke of how slowly his mind worked, how even as an adult he read laboriously and out loud. His law partner and biographer William Herndon claimed that “Lincoln read less and thought more than any man in his sphere in America.”
Gary Shrader driving tractor hour after hour on the farm.
- SLIDE #: Inability to Love
STORY: Tucson to Destin, Florida trip. Report card. Quit the ministry. Long walks up beach—decided to slow down and make a priority of our children.
- SLIDE #: Sunset Fatigue
Sunset fatigue is when we come home at the end of a day’s work just too tired, drained, or to too preoccupied, to love the people who need our love the most. Our spouses and children end up getting the leftovers.
Sunset fatigue has set in when you set up mock, hurry-up-races: “Okay, kids, let’s see who can take a bath fastest”) so you can get them to bed as soon as possible to have some quiet.
I don’t think that the effects of busyness and hurriedness on children can be underestimated.
They have school, then homework, music practice, soccer practice (or whatever sport), and they actually have to schedule “play dates” with friends.
3-year-old football player at YMCA in Dallas: help Derrek: 5 and 6 year olds, three point stance, which direction to run, where the goal line is.
Resting, watching games. Big, giant of a man holding hands with preschooler.
“Can I help you?”
“Where do I sign up my child for football?”
“How is he?”
“Three.”
“Don’t have leagues for 3-year-olds. But give us another two or three years and I am sure we till have one.”
ADD and Bipolar: The plastic brain—the Agile Gene
- SLIDE #: JESUS UNDERSTANDS THE PRESSURES
- SLIDE #: LUKE 4:38: Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her.
- SLIDE #: LUKE 4:39 So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them.
- SLIDE #: LUKE 4:40 When the sun was setting, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them.
- SLIDE #: LUKE 4:41 Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Christ.
Don’t you think Jesus felt like saying “Leave me alone!?”
How many of you moms felt the tug of your child’s hand and wanted to yell “Leave me alone!”
How many of you bosses have employees that knock on your doors and you want to say “Leave me alone?!”
How many of you teachers have students that are so emotionally needy and you want to say “Leave me alone!”
- SLIDE #: LUKE 4:42: At daybreak Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them.
Put yourself in Jesus’ sandals for a moment. Can you ever feel justified in pulling away to be alone? Jesus did.
On occasion He even left some hurting people unhealed, unexorcized, unfed, and untaught in order to get away for a time of restoration.
- SLIDE #: THE PRESCRIPTION: The spiritual practices of slowing and solitude are the antidote to hurry sickness.
- SLIDE #: Luke 5:15-16: Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
To eliminate hurry does not mean that we won’t be busy. Jesus was busy; but, He was never hurried.
If we don’t want hurry to rule our lives, we need to take steps to slow down
Ortberg: “Not long after moving to Chicago, I called a wise friend to ask for some spiritual direction. Described his fast pace … everything around him moving so fast … Family life was suffering … heart was growing cynical, testy and irritated …
“What did I need to do, I asked him, to be spiritually healthy?”
Long pause.
Another long pause: “There is nothing else,” he said.
- SLIDE #: “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life,” he said at last.
“Okay, I’ve written that one down, ”That’s a good one. Now what else is there?”
- SLIDE #: Slowing and Solitude are the spiritual practices God gives us for healing “Hurry-Sickness.”
- SLIDE #: “Slowing”
Slowing involves cultivating patience by deliberately choosing to place ourselves in positions where we simply have to wait.
For the next month, when you are at the grocery store, look carefully to see which check-out line is longest. Get in it. Let one person go ahead of you.
Over the next month deliberately drive in the slow lane on the expressway.
Yesterday refused to honk at lady at the stoplight at La Jolla and Naranja. Putting on make up. Drove 35 in 45. Pulled in the right hand turn lane to finally pass. Her, slowed down and practiced slowing.
For a week, eat your food slowly. Force yourself to chew at least fifteen times before each swallow.
Go through one evening unplugged.
- SLIDE #: A researcher found that it takes a high dose of amphetamines to kill a mouse living in solitude. But a group of mice will start hopping around and hyping each other up so much that a dose twenty times smaller will be lethal – so great is the effect of “the world” on mice.
In fact, a mouse that had been given no amphetamines at all, placed in a group on the drug, will get so hopped up that in ten minutes or so it will be dead. “In groups they go off like popcorn or firecrackers,” the writer observed.
We might guess that only a mouse would be so foolish as to hang out with a bunch of other mice that were so hopped up, going at such a frantic pace in such mindless activity that they would put their own well-being and even lives at risk. It would be wrong to think so.
- SLIDE #: “Solitude”
What exactly is solitude? What do we do when we practice solitude? What should we bring along to that quiet place?
The primary answer, of course, is “nothing”. We bring nothing.
Entering into Solitude helps to counter act a society that is running out of control. We are being carried along with it.
The messages come at us in a continual stream:
“We’ll help you move faster… Act now, don’t delay! … You can buy it now if you’ll just stretch – no money down, easy monthly payments… You can earn it if you run a little faster, stay a little longer, work a little harder…
It’s okay to be frantic and stressed and empty and exhausted – that’s the way everybody is.”
It is creeping up on all of us and we are so used to it that we don’t recognizing that it is squeezing the live, love and joy right out of us.
Frog in high school: cool water, slowed respiration and did open heart surgery. Died.
Put frog in pan of water and add heat and frog will acclimate and boil to death.
We are the frogs in our culture.
What are some steps into solitude?
T advantage of the “little solitudes” that fill our day.
Consider the solitude of those early morning moments in bed before the family awakens. Think of the solitude of a morning cup of coffee before beginning the work of the day.
Savor the little victories
Find a “quiet place.”
Why not insist that a little inner sanctuary be put into our house plans, a small place where any family member could go to be alone and silent? We build elaborate play rooms and family rooms and think it well worth the expense. If you already own a home consider enclosing a little section of the garage or patio.
I know of one family that has a special chair. Whenever anyone sits in it he or she is saying, “Please don’t bother me, I want to be alone.”
Used to have a secluded place on the way home to Cassim House: quiet moment, settle heart, lay down burdens.
We need brief periods of solitude on a regular basis – preferably each day, even at intervals during the day. But we also need, at great intervals, extended periods of solitude – half a day, a day, or a few days.
Glenn tells me that you can have solitude while you are surfing.
I am not certain that he isn’t right.
Melancholics, introverts restored by quiet reflection.
Extroverts might very well find restoration, slowing and solitude by stepping out of their normal, hurried and harried lifestyle and changing pace with some beloved activity.
Don’t try to do it right the first time!
One day I hope to do better. But for now, I find consolation in the words of Brother Lawrence: “For many years I was bothered by the thought that I was a failure at prayer; and I’ve gotten along much better ever since.”
- SLIDE #: THE RESULT: We enter into the realm of Joy God intended for us to enjoy all along.
No one really enjoys being around harried, hurried people. Ruins relationships
In his book, The Life You Always Wanted, John Ortberg tells of asking an airline pilot to share one of his favorite flying experiences.
An elderly couple were flying first class, sitting behind a businessman who was enormously frustrated with them. They had been just ahead of him in line at the gate, and again boarding the plane, and they moved slowly, but he was in a hurry.
When the meal was served, they delayed the businessman again by having to get some pills from the overhead storage, inadvertently dropping a battered duffel bag. “What’s the matter with you people?” he exploded, loudly enough for the whole cabin to hear. “I’m amazed you ever get anywhere. Why can’t you just stay home?”
To register his anger, the hurried business man reclined his seat back as hard as he could – so hard that the elderly husband’s tray of food spilled all over him and his wife.
The flight attendant apologized to the couple profusely: “Is there anything we can do?” she asked.
The husband explained that it was their fiftieth wedding anniversary and they were flying for the first time. “Let me at least bring you a bottle of wine,” the flight attendant offered.
She did so. When it was uncorked, the old husband stood up, proposed a toast – and poured the bottle over the head of the impatient businessman sitting in front of them.
And, the pilot told Ortberg, everybody in the cabin cheered!
Genesis One God is on a roll as He creates: good, good, good, etc. very good!
He finished and looked at it and was delighted. God’s pleasure for Adam and Eve to enjoy the Garden.
Then the fall, Salvation is to restore us to the joy in the Garden.
Jesus was the Joy Bringer: He brought the restoring Gospel.
- SLIDE #: John 15:9-11: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love,
- SLIDE #: just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
Consider how your life would be different if you approached it from an unhurried perspective.
We might hear the voice of God better, express worship to God more effectively, find physical, mental and spiritual restoration, and enjoy life more than we ever imagined it could be enjoyed.
- SLIDE #: JULIE STORY:
As I reflect on a life lived in the fast lane, I have a few regrets. I spent years in the practice room patiently honing my musical skills, but I wish I had taken the time learning how to love my family better. I wish I’d sat on the bubble-gum pink carpet of Bronwyn’s room playing with her hamsters (all thirty-two of them). I wish I had savored more moments snapping Brie’s Barbie dresses or combing her “My Little Pony” mane. Brie quietly accepted being ignored when I stepped over her to do greater things, but I wish I had rocked her longer. Bronwyn did not hide her hurt, and I wept with her years later.
I wish that I had held her closer sooner.
“Hurry” is a hard-core addictive drug. Once you feel the rush, you want a hit, and then another, and another and another. You don’t realize that the adrenaline that flows through your veins is killing you. You don’t realize that living life in fast-forward is like riding a high-speed train: you miss the view. You miss the love. And most of all, you miss God. Because, as you probably know, eternity stands still. So why don’t you try it? The people you love will love you for it.
