unrushed

“The understanding and honoring of time is fundamental to the realization of who we are and how we live…Hours and days, weeks and months and years, are the very stuff of holiness. Among the many desecrations visited upon the creation, the profanation of time ranks near the top…Time is the medium in which we do all our living. When time is desecrated, life is desecrated. The most conspicuous evidences of this desecration are hurry and procrastination…Whether by a hurried grasping or by a procrastinating inattention, time is violated.”  (Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places)

It has been said that hurry is among the greatest enemies to Christian faith formation. I believe it is. Some things can only be formed in us in a context that is unrushed and non-anxious. What’s more, some things take time, lots of time. And repetition. 

Just think: we are heirs of a tradition that was handed down for centuries via oral means. This meant the stories had to be repeated over and over and over again, spanning many, many years before they were really learned and embodied.

In our Western “civilized” world, this aspect of our faith is fading (if not already past). But what if we slowed down? What if we made ourselves at home in a few simple stories and a few powerful truths, instead of rushing to move on to the next exciting thing?

How can you take time in the spaces of your life to practice the unhurried rhythms of creation and Christ and church? And when time is set aside, what story will fill that time? I invite you to do that this week: take time—unrushed time—to attend to what God is already doing in and around you. Pay attention to the story of his grace that has gone before you and will stretch well beyond your own life.