In Making Room I wrote about an encounter I had in Target in 2013. I inexplicably left the house wearing what looked like the Target uniform, and then I went to Target! I didn’t realize it until my cart was full. I ended up chatting with the store manager at the Merrifield, Virginia store and making all sorts of connections. We both have three sons and had crossed geographic paths in Michigan and elsewhere in Northern Virginia. I argued that those kinds of connections tend to happen only when we are not in a hurry. The Swahili saying, “Haraka haraka haina baraka”1 means hurry hurry has no blessings. Do you feel like you are sometimes guilty of hurrying past blessings?
In the last few years a Dallas Willard quote has gained popularity.2 He said we need to “ruthlessly eliminate hurry” from our lives. When an eager mentee of Willard’s said something to the effect, “Good one: eliminate hurry. What else?” Willard replied: “There is nothing else.” It is interesting to consider how our 21st Century lives differ from all of human history. With technology we run from one thing to the next, physically and mentally, more than any of our predecessors. The ability to attend my sons’s basketball game this afternoon, 15 plus miles away, is taken for granted even with a crazy storm outside. We are able to be more places in less time than was thought possible just a hundred years ago. But do we stop to question whether this a net positive? Do we just hurry hurry without even considering the cost?
In contrast the CSLI devotional today addressed how the incarnation of Jesus leveled the playing field. The author wrote that “the King of Kings, brings with Himself holy redemption, restoration, and flourishing for ALL humanity— from outcast to king.” (emphasis mine).
Perhaps we can tie these concepts together by observing that there is an inherent unhurriedness in valuing people as people. We can hurriedly see others as outcasts or kings, or as those who fall in between. But a biblical view requires that we do not use labels or shortcuts, but take the time to know the person as an individual created in the image of God.
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them. Genesis 1: 27
Digging Deeper:
Is there someone in your life that you want to hurry past? Someone who you need to consider anew as an image-bearer of the One True King?
Where in your life are you particularly called to “ruthlessly eliminate hurry?”
As Chuck Olson put it, where are you cut off from God, other people or even your own soul?
I have never been to Africa. The only reason I know this is because my wonderful mentor through the C.S. Lewis Institute visited South Africa.
The concept was popularized, in part, by John Mark Comer’s book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World from 2019. Admittedly, I’ve not read the book but enjoyed this lengthy review immensely. My favorite quote is as follows: “Corrie ten Boom once said that if the devil can’t make you sin, he’ll make you busy. There’s truth in that. Both sin and busyness have the exact same effect—they cut off your connection to God, to other people, and even to your own soul.”
I remember that well☺️. I need to print it out😇