Where did I learn to hurry?
I know the answer for myself. I was my own mentor. I listened to all the get-more-done voices. I attacked tasks as if they were the enemies I had to annihilate. Just get more done and get up the next day and get even more done. Success waited on the other side of productivity.
But it didn’t. Not always. In fact, sometimes it was the opposite. I ended the day feeling beaten down and ineffective. And tired. Very, very tired. Not fall-asleep tired. Oh no! That would have been a gift. I was mind and heart tired. I kept feeling it wasn’t enough. So the next morning, I would try again. Work harder. Get more done.
This isn’t about the writing disciplines I have put in place to obediently fulfill God’s call on my life. No, it’s the whole of life including home, meals, grocery, people, ministry. I was never done. I was never caught up. There was always something more I should have done, could have done if I had planned better or worked harder or faster.
Do you see where I put the focus? On me and my ability to get more done.
That’s the mindset that un-hurry unravels. And it has taken me fifty years to recognize it.
I am trying to stop telling myself that if I do this and that and even more of this and that, I can put my life together better and more productively.
I now realize I can’t. But I know Who can. And I’m listening in a different way. I’m listening to His pleasure of who He created me to be.
I’m hearing what hurry never helped me hear—that I’m enough for Him and He wants me to know that I’m enough for me, too.
I’m realizing, and this is a very personal confession, that I hid my insecurity from myself behind a do-more mentality. If I could do more, I could push my insecurity out. But it was a high-speed chase I couldn’t win.
This hasn’t been about pleasing people though I never turned away from affirmation. This has been about pleasing my inner need to feel competent. But I forgot that worth doesn’t come from what I do. Worth comes from Who made me.
Un-hurry untangles this mindset for me. Yes, it is a slow-down, but slow is not the focus. Rejecting self-push is. That’s the difference. And not pushing for the right reason. Not pushing so there is space in my head to hear a different voice that doesn’t sound like mine.
This is more than a mind-set. This is about resetting my soul, the inner part of me designed by God as His home in my life for eternity. This is about kingdom rule and who is my king in the push and shove.
I’ve been thinking and praying this way for about two weeks now. I don’t think it’s going away. And I’m glad. I think I’m closer to singing the song of soul set free and it settles me with a call that came from the Garden. “Where are you?”
And I’m answering, “Wherever you want me.”
And He smiles. And then, the only hurry I need is to get to God
.
May it be so for you, as well.
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