“[L]ove, joy, and peace are at the heart of all Jesus is trying to grow in the soil of your life. And all three are incompatible with hurry.” –John Mark Comer

There is a difference between being busy and being hurried. We’ve talked the last couple of weeks about how God is the three-mile-an-hour God and considered slowing as a spiritual practice. Most of us do have very busy lives, and we probably could choose to cut some things out to create more space for God. But I want to draw the distinction this week between having a lot of things to do and doing those things with a driving and relentless sense of hurry. Being busy and moving fast can be fine; being ceaselessly pushed by hurry is not.

Hurry, as I’m talking about it here, is an internal orientation—recognized or not—where there is an ever-present urgency to get to the next thing as soon as possible. It can be present even when our schedules aren’t jam-packed, because, as Rev. Derek Penwell says: “We carry our hurry with us like a second skin.” There are many social and cultural reasons why such a drive may exist in us, but the fruit of it is always the same: the destruction of connection to God, others, and even ourselves.

Hurry is anathema to life with God because it makes us utterly incapable of existing in the present moment, and, as we said last week, the present moment is the only place we ever actually are. Hurry is incompatible with awareness, and, to quote Rev. Penwell again, “…following Jesus isn’t only about what we do, but also about how we pay attention.” Hurry robs us of paying attention. It makes us miss things that are right in front of us. It makes it impossible to live at the speed of love.

Practicing slowing means deliberately putting ourselves in situations where we just have to wait (staying in the slow lane; choosing the longest checkout line at the store). But we never wait just to wait. While waiting, we ask God to help us surrender our hurry to him, and then ask for help to notice and wonder about everything and everyone around us, all the people and beauty we typically rush right past on our way to the next thing. Will you join me in practicing slowing this summer? Let’s walk at the speed of love, together.