Your One LifeSample

Day Six: Creating Space

Something deep in my soul longs for a life that’s more simple and less frantic. If I’m being totally transparent, I regret things I missed in life because of my compulsive busyness and relentless hurry. But in recent years, I’ve been on a path to detox from an addiction to speed and hurry. I like the trajectory of my life these days, and I can feel my soul coming alive. 

It’s interesting to me that when I read the Gospels, Jesus never seems rushed, frantic, hurried, or frazzled. He never seems distracted, preoccupied, or looking past a person to the next opportunity. 

You might be tempted to conclude that Jesus lived a nice, simple, easygoing, nondemanding life. The Gospels reveal a different picture. There were relentless demands, pressures, and opposition. He was run out of town, misunderstood, mocked, and ridiculed. And the religious leaders were constantly plotting ways to have Him killed. Jesus was fully engaged in the messiness of life, but He was unhurried and undistracted. 

Just as it was true for Jesus, space and slowness are friends to our health: physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual. To live the life we want, most of us need increased space and a decreased pace. Busyness isn’t just about an overcrowded calendar and too many self-inflicted commitments. It’s also about filling every moment with noise and meaningless distraction. We must be rigorous to create space where we can reflect, think, listen, process, meditate... and just be. 

In his book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, John Mark Comer writes, “Hurry and love are incompatible. All my worst moments as a father, a husband, and a pastor, even as a human being, are when I’m in a hurry. . . . Hurry and love are oil and water: they simply do not mix.”

Constant busyness causes the heart and soul to harden and ultimately robs us of intimacy. This is true in our relationships with our kids, our friends, our spouse, and certainly with God. 

We’re not just fighting for a less frantic pace of life, we’re fighting for a better life! Declare a new day and a new way of living. 

What would a healthy pace of life look like for you? In what ways have you seen an unhealthy pace of life take a toll on you?