Confessions of a Hurried Man

The population of Lee County has increased about triple during this winter season.  And notice I have the bad habit of getting into the far left lane with all those "snow birds" that have no particular place to go. There was the occasion, last week, when I caught myself thinking out loud, “I can’t wait to get back to Quiet Rest and away from all these stop lights and horns and just plan gawking.”  But more importantly and more often than I'd care to admit, I find that I am in a hurry in another way. It's not the typical kind of hurrying—rushing to get into the "self check out lane" at the hardware story, speeding through traffic, or running around juggling four or five tasks at a time. It's more an inability to be present to my life as it is right now. So often I find that no matter the circumstances, I'm hurrying through, wondering or worrying, as the case may be, what is next.  I have even come to the point of asking Bettyann to make a weekly schedule with times and places on it for me to follow.

When ruminating on it, this pattern of hurrying through my life to the "next event" has been fairly typical and probably ingrained from a young age. When I was a child, I couldn't wait to be a teenager. When I was a teenager, I couldn't wait to be in college. When I was in college, I couldn't wait to be a professional. I can't remember a season of life, even at seventy one, I haven't been pushing the boundaries, jumping out of the box and then on to the next exploration of the unknown! But abruptly the speed of life seems to be at warp speed – at least exaggerated.  I cannot say I woke one day and began lamenting on how quickly time has passed, and how rushed I feel as I speed through it.  All I know is that I do, most of the time, these days.

Then, I suppose, by living in an efficiency-driven society isn't helping the propensity towards hurrying through life. I live with everyone else in an "instant" society.  I experience this when asked to create an item from wood.  Invariable toward the end of the conversation is, "Bill, how soon can you have it done?” I've noticed over the last decade that the increasingly rapid technological developments only add to people’s impatience when things are not achieved instantaneously. For example, the computer.  I admit that while technology has greatly improved many aspects of my life, the ever-quickening pace of development coupled with my own propensity to hurry has probably been very repressive to my spiritual life. Perseverance atrophies like an unused muscle, and there is no space left for quite contemplation and reflection. Impatience fills my heart with disappointment when answers don't come quickly, or interruptions slow my "perceived" achievement of goals, or the "improvement" of a certain goal doesn't move ahead at break-neck speed.

This old world that the Bible illumines couldn't be more different from my hurried life. And perhaps adds to my frustration, recognizing God has never been portrayed as being in a hurry. Abraham, for example, received the promise of an heir twenty-five years before he actually laid eyes on Isaac. Joseph had a dream as a seventeen year-old young man that his brothers would one day bow down to him. Yet it was countless years and many difficulties later that his brothers would come and kneel before him, asking for food. Moses was eighty years old—long past his prime of life—when God appeared to him in the burning bush and called him to deliver the children of Israel. David was anointed king by Samuel as a young boy tending his father's flocks, long before he finally ascended to the throne. And Jesus spent thirty years in relative obscurity, not involved in public ministry, and only three years announcing the kingdom and God's rule in his life and ministry.

From my myopic and unique perspective—particularly living most of my days in an "instant" society—it is a little difficult to understand why the Bible depicts the slow unfolding of God's redemption; both of God's promises to these individuals and of the redemption of the world. The Messiah was prophesied hundreds of years before he actually arrived on the scene.  My inquisitive mind wants to ask why God seems to move so slowly with regards to something as imperative as salvation history?

This was a question that arose in the first century as well. With the apocalyptic expectation of the imminent establishment of the Messianic kingdom, many raised this question. The second epistle attributed to the apostle Peter in part addresses these concerns. Why was God waiting to deliver on the promise of an eternal kingdom? This was no trivial matter as it was cause for great unbelief. These questioners began to mock God assuming that not only was this a false promise, but perhaps a false god. Not so, Peter argues, for the slowness of God is in fact salvation. "The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance....Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord to be salvation" 2 Peter 3:9, 14-15.

Almighty Father, God, I am realizing that Your long, slow, work is not to torment me finding myself in a hurry, wondering what’s next.  Rather, I now see Your "slowness" as a good and precious gift. Help me to understand that Your seemingly slow movement gives ample opportunity to be present to my life, allowing the journey to shape me and mold me into the person I have been designed to be from birth. In addition, give me a fuller understand that a spacious timetable gives more opportunity to grow in understanding the multi-faceted implications of Your rescue—not just for myself but for the world. As I write the last chapter of my life, my desire is to live more fully in the realm of Your patience, "looking" as Peter said, "for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells," and to live to enfold others into the slow and patient kingdom of God. Amen