slow down

I am sitting at Rey Azteca, having just enjoyed the number 7 lunch special - a burrito, and I'm waiting for my car to finish undergoing an oil transplant.  When I was told it would be an hour and twenty minutes, it took everything in me to not say "never mind." I don't have 80 minutes to spare today. I have friends coming in town for the weekend, I'm having dinner with a family from church tonight, and I'm fortunate enough to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra at the Bryce Jordan Center... and I still have 5-6 pages to go on my 5-6 page paper on the literary structuring of the New Testament on Monday.

With all that going on, I also have this desire in me to hurry up 'n slow down.  I am addicted to feeling hurried, I think partially because it makes me feel important and useful. I'm so busy, people must need me, people must depend on me, I am necessary. Unfortunately, if I find my purpose through busy-ness, I'm missing out on a lot that God has for me.

When I've been hurrying around, sitting down to pray or read my Bible is nearly impossible. My brain doesn't go from full speed to "be still" with the flip of a switch. I find that my best time with God (and with friends and family) is when my whole day has not been hurried.  And I worry that when my baby comes, if I don't learn how to slow down now, I'll wish I had done things differently in 18 years (Steven Furtick wrote on article on this: read it here).

I'll still work hard. I'll still do what needs to be done. But I want to do it at the speed it was intended to be done.  Jesus walked, so why am I running around like a chicken with its head cut off?