Live an unhurried life (with all the time in the world)

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If you could only use one word to describe Jesus, one word, what would it be?

[Pause and think about that before reading on]

When asked this question, the Bible Theologian, Dallas Willard, responded with the word, ‘relaxed’.

What was your word? Now, if I were a betting man (and, I’m not), I’d bet that relaxed wasn’t your word … Nah! Nor mine.

But think about it, Dallas is right, isn’t he?  Do you ever imagine, when reading the scriptures, Jesus in a rush or hurried?

No.

Consider some of the well-known encounters in Jesus’ life … Mary and Martha — they send urgent word to Jesus, “Come, the one you love is sick” … they send urgent word …  so Jesus stayed put and ‘hung around’ where he was for a couple more days … hmmm 🤔 ? [Read, John 11]

Then there’s Jairus — “Jesus, come quickly my daughter is dying!”  Jesus: “Ok … but hold on a minute … somebody in the crowd just touched me …”  What?    Really?    But Jesus … my daughter … she’s dying! (imagine the disbelief and sheer panic Jairus was experiencing in that moment). [Read, Mark 5:21-43]

You get the sense that Jesus had all the time in the world.

Stop!? God, you can’t be serious!

Since the end of last year, God has been on Penny and my case … does he do that with you, too?

You get a deep, nagging sense of something, and it won’t go away. It seems everywhere you look and everything you read is saying the same thing … to us, it was

“Stop! Rest in me!”

But God, there is no time to stop!

“Declutter!”

But God, where do we start?

“Make time!”

What!? God, there’s too much life and not enough time!

Here’s another thing Dallas Willard said (he said a lot of really good stuff): ‘Time is made, not found.’

But where is this time made? Can we actually create more time?

Let’s think about that for a moment … what if we could restructure the rules of the cosmos and extend the number of hours in a day, say from 24 to 30 hours? What would we do with those extra 6 hours a day (that’s 3 months in a year!)?

I’m sorry to be the breaker of bad news here. The truth is, we’d probably fill ’em up with more of the same stuff … things like sleep, work, TV, social media and hanging out with friends! Not that any of those are bad, but our focus here is …

 How do we respond to God’s call to stop and rest in him?

By identifying and eliminating side-show distractions, that’s how!

Who is forming you (your life)?

Our lives are the accumulation of little moments, tiny actions that ultimately form who we are. Even though you’re probably totally unaware of them you’ll recognise them by their name … habits. It is this collection of seemingly inconsequential activities, that, when added together, carry great power. The power to influence and form (you)!

 The pastor and author, John Mark Comer, puts it well …

“How we spend our time is how we spend our lives. It’s who we become (or don’t become).”

John Mark Comer, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to stay emotionally healthy and spiritually alive in the chaos of the modern world

Allow me to use the following statistic as an example — seriously, this blew me away, when I read it.

Are you ready?

In a single day, a person will touch their smartphone an average of 2’617 times — every day … 2’617 times!  Whoa! That’s nuts, isn’t it?!

Imagine with me for a moment … rather than reaching for your phone every time, what if you reached out for God’s intimate touch instead?

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

We don’t have to live tired and worn out

Jesus lived by the unforced rhythms of grace [Matthew 11: 28-30, The Message] — a life of deliberate design, punctuated by times of solitude and silence.

By purposefully withdrawing from ‘worldly’ activities, Jesus nurtured an intimate inner connection with his Father [God].

This was paramount to Jesus. This was his life source.

The problem is, we’re often too busy running on the hamster-wheel of life to stop. And, at those times we do choose to hop-off for a break, we turn to easy counterfeit comforts in the vain hope that they’ll provide rest for our weary souls.

But Jesus knew where and how to take a real rest.  His invitation is for us to do the same.

It takes deliberate action

Penny and I have decided to respond to God by making a few small adjustments to our day.  Our goal is to identify and eliminate distractions and replace them with new rhythms. By rhythms, I mean simple activities (spiritual disciplines) that nurture the presence of God.

These include:

  • Starting each day with prolonged time in God’s presence – alone, in solitude. Our focus is on receiving the love that he is pouring into our hearts [see, Romans 5:5]. This may include silence and contemplative prayers.
  • Centring prayers – short truths that reconnect our hearts with his. Brennan Manning (one of my favourite authors) encourages us to pray simply and in rhythm with our natural breathing pattern. Something like, ‘Abba (as you breathe in), I belong to you (as you breathe out)’.  Another I use is, ‘Abba, I receive your love.’
  • Sabbath rest – this is very different from what we perceived – which was taking a day off. It’s a weekly gift from God, a time of escape from work and activity. Exclusive time for you to enjoy life!

There is much more depth to each of these spiritual activities. I encourage you to do a little more research into them for yourself. To help you, I’ve included a list of resources that we’ve found helpful at the end of this article.

The changes we have made are subtle, but they are producing beautiful fruit.  Our inner-man is more at peace, more settled. As we drink, a river is being formed within [John 7:37-38].

Every day feels more settled and less rushed. Rather than living at break-neck speed, we’re slowing down … but being more productive!

It’s as if we have more … time!

We are also seeing God in places we didn’t before…

God’s invitation – if you’re too busy you could miss it!

Do you remember Moses and the burning bush?

A bush on fire wasn’t a particularly unusual sight for Moses during those hot dry days watching over sheep in the wilderness. But, on this occasion it was different.

At closer inspection this particular bush wasn’t consumed by the flames … how odd! It was this that grabbed Moses’ attention and drew him towards the presence of God.

How many times do we pass by God’s invitation to a personal encounter because we’re too busy to see the odd or peculiar? That special moment, perfectly placed to draw us aside.

There’s so much more to this, I could go on, but I won’t, maybe another day.

What needs to change?

Allow me to finish with this. If you were to take stock of how you spend your time (your life) – what would it reveal? Who or what you are giving your life to, I wonder?

Remember, it’s not only the ‘bulky’ activities, things like watching a movie or sport. It’s often innocuous activities, like swiping through Facebook, the news, or that quick game of Candy Crush.  Those things you turn to without thinking when there’s a lull in your day or you’re waiting in line at the supermarket. That kind of thing.

If you continue doing these unchanged, who will you become? Will these lead you to become the person God had in mind when he dreamed you into existence?

If you’re happy with the answer — great, carry on!  If not, which distractions are you going to drop from your life?

And what spiritual rhythms will you adopt to replace them?

As you explore this area of rest for yourself, I’d love to learn what distractions you identified? Also, what subtle changes you made and what fruit has it produced in your life?

Feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of the page.

If you’d like to investigate and explore the area of ‘spiritual disciplines’, these are a few books I found helpful:

 

 

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