Need to Slow Down?
“O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.” Psalm 95:6
“Father, please speak to me,” I prayed. “I am here to hear. Won’t you?”
His answer came fast. Rapid. Look up the word. What does it mean?
Dictionary.com online says rapid is, “Occurring within a short time; happening speedily.” The Lord had a message for me. For you also?
Do you see? My calling for you is not to be done in a rapid period of time. Yet you rush. Do you see? Your timing is not mine. My timing is what I want. Lack of trust causes you to rush. This speed keeps you from walking in love. This is fear-based. Slow down. Wait for me. Be still. Do you see? The camel goes at the pace the camel was meant to go. So does the turtle. They both go at the pace I have given them. You do not. You go at your own fleshly pace. Lack of trusting me. Desire to prove yourself to me. I will not love you less because you go at the pace I desire. I will love you regardless. You are like a school child believing the faster you bring your homework in to the teacher, the better the grade. I am not grading you. I want to love you. Receive my love. Go slowly. Go at the pace I give you. I am teaching you much. This is all preparation. Let me lead you at my speed.
How many of us need to hear this message? How many of us rush around our lives trying to get everything done – fast? Rapidly? How many of us are supposed to be as busy as we are? This hurried? This rapid? This quick at everything? This stressed? This exhausted? With calendars so jam packed we can hardly squeeze anything else in? Utterly convinced it has to be this way? That we have to say yes to everything, or almost everything? That we can’t say no, or barely or rarely? That we have to hurry, hurry? Convinced God wants us so busy, so rushed? That this is how we have to please Him? To serve Him? If we even believe in Him. And even desire to please and serve Him.
When our lives are over and we stand before the Lord, how will we explain all we packed into our schedules that wasn’t His will? Or that we rushed rapidly through what in fact was His will due to fear, worry, pride, or any other sin? How will we justify all we left out of our schedules because we were too busy with all we willfully packed in that was not His desire? How will we account for our hurried-and-harried-paced lives for those of us He never called to live so fast, so busy, so frenzied? Most importantly, how will we explain why we were too busy and rushed to make our highest priority daily loving and worshiping Him, spending time in His presence, seeking Him, hearing Him, following Him at the pace He desires as He leads us in an ever deepening relationship with Him as Lord?