Slower I Go
There’s something about rainy days that feels still in a way our souls crave.
The slow morning, candles burning, dark clouds outside, light rain falling against the windows. Days like this can feel almost too good to be true, and maybe part of the reason they feel so beautiful is because they give us permission to slow down.
But what if this is more than something we occasionally enjoy? What if this is closer to how God intended us to live?
Not constantly rushing. Not always hurrying from one thing to the next. Not living as though everything depends on us. Don’t get me wrong, there are things to do. There are responsibilities to carry, work to be done, and things that require our attention.
But I wonder how much of our busyness we have simply accepted as normal. How much of our hurry have we mistaken for faithfulness?
We see this contrast in the story of Mary and Martha. Martha was busy serving Jesus while Mary was sitting at His feet, listening to Him. And Jesus said,
“But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.’” Luke 10:41–42
Jesus did not tell Martha that serving Him was wrong. He exposed something deeper. She was anxious and troubled by many things while Mary had recognized the one thing that mattered most: Jesus.
How easily we become busy bodies. How easily we fill every empty space with another task, another responsibility, another thing to accomplish. And because everyone around us is doing the same thing, we rarely stop to question whether this is actually the way we were meant to live.
Maybe instead of accepting our constant busyness as normal, we should allow it to become a conviction. A conviction that we have neglected the beauty of slowness.
Because the world around us tells us to hurry. The American dream is built around hustle. Grind harder. Do more. Maximize your time. Kill two birds with one stone. Never waste a moment. Always be moving toward the next thing.
But what if the Christian life looks different? What if it looks like steadfastness instead of striving? What if it looks like slow feet and slow plans? What if it looks like being willing to stop, to listen, to notice, to pray, and to wait?
I was listening to a song by SEU Worship today, one of my favorite worship songs, and one of the lines stopped me: “You’re never in a hurry, so why ever would I be?” I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
The God of the universe. Omnipotent. Omnipresent. Omniscient. The One who holds the whole world in His hands, who knows every thought in our minds and every star in the heavens. And yet He is never in a hurry.
So why am I?
Who told me that I carry so much weight? Who told me everything has to happen right now? Who told me that if I slow down, everything will fall apart? If even the God who ordered the days of creation is not in a hurry, who am I to live as though I must constantly rush ahead of Him?
God is patient. Not slow, but patient. Peter writes,
“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9
What the world might call slowness, God calls patience. There is something beautiful about that. God is not hurried by our timelines. He is not anxious about accomplishing His purposes. He is not scrambling to make everything happen. He is patient.
And I wonder how much of our hurry is really about time at all.
The enemy is described as one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. If he cannot completely turn our hearts away from Christ, perhaps he will settle for getting our eyes off of Him. He can fill our minds with everything happening around us until we hardly have the capacity to look up and remember who is actually holding it all.
Our schedules can become distractions. So can our responsibilities, our fears, our plans, our comparison, and even the things we genuinely care about. We can become so consumed with what is next that we forget the One who is already there.
He does not necessarily need us to stop believing in Jesus to distract us. He only needs us to stop looking at Him.
Hebrews 12:1–2 says,
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
The answer is not found in trying harder to manage everything in front of us. We are told to look to Jesus.
Because when our eyes are fixed on everything happening around us, it becomes easy to forget who is sovereign over it all. We begin carrying things God never asked us to carry. We begin believing that everything depends on us, that everything must happen now, and that if we do not hold everything together, it will all fall apart.
Maybe that is why the enemy works so hard to keep us distracted. He wants our attention scattered because he knows what happens when our eyes are fixed on Christ. We remember who He is. We remember who we are. We remember that we are not God, and we were never meant to carry the weight of being Him.
So perhaps the invitation is not simply to slow our lives down. It is to slow our hearts enough to remember what is true.
We do not have to know every step before we take the next one. We do not have to control every outcome. We do not have to live under the weight of tomorrow when God has only given us today.
The enemy wants our eyes everywhere but Jesus. He will use whatever he can to pull our attention away from the One who is worthy of it. But we do not have to follow every thought, every fear, every urgency, or every demand that comes our way.
We can look to Jesus.
We can remember that He is enough. He is not in a hurry. He is not anxious. He is not overwhelmed by what overwhelms us. He is not asking us to run ahead of Him.
So maybe today, we can stop looking at everything demanding my attention and look at Him instead. Maybe we can trust Him enough to wait, enough to release, and enough to take the next faithful step without demanding to see the entire road.
Because He is never in a hurry.
So why ever would I be?