We are all aware that we live in a time when life moves faster than at any other period in the history of our world. The internet has revolutionized the way people communicate, do business, and shop, having sped up and “progressed” basically every aspect of life. Other relatively recent inventions like the high-speed automobile, refrigerators, microwaves and televisions have also altered the course of history.
What I often ask myself, when I have a few spare seconds during my hurried schedule, is what happened to the old ideals of resting, taking things at a more gradual pace, being patient – slowing down? It seems that the ambitious drive, the ethic of hard work that makes America what it is, has perhaps driven itself into rather an extreme state. People (like myself sometimes, unfortunately) hurry from one activity to the next without breaking for a second. The most important thing in life seems to be whatever is the next activity – the next project at work, the next big trip, the next TV show coming on, the next phone call to make, the next twitter update, and on and on …
With all of this in mind, I would suggest that slowing down and resting (in a healthy way) are actually quality activities, and even ones that are recommended/commanded by the very word of God. Even the Creator of the Universe, after six days of strenuous creative labor, took a seventh day to sit back and enjoy his work – to reflect and to rest! I believe that His is a good example to follow. Indeed, work should be our main priority. About six out of seven days (roughly 85 percent of a given week) is to be spent working. But that leaves 15 percent to be used in healthy rest.
What is healthy rest? I believe it starts with a reflective mind and heart fixed on Jesus Christ that will compel someone to thanksgiving, prayer, worship, and even Christ-like service to our fellow man. Where it goes from there is usually up to the Holy Spirit. One of my favorite authors, George MacDonald, summarizes rest like this: “The cessation of labor affords but the necessary occasion – makes it possible, as it were – for the occupant of an outlying station in the wilderness to return to his Father’s house for fresh supplies to sustain life and energy. The worker goes home at night and returns in the morning to the labors of the field. Mere physical rest could never on its own build up the frame in such light and vigor as come through sleep. The heart and mind must rest, too, and thus be supplied for the work ahead.” The goal of healthy rest seems to be to prepare us for work. Our work will not be as efficient, cheerful or fruitful without this rest.
Can we slow down and be still in this high-speed age? Are there benefits to doing this? Without preparing a laundry lists of advantages and disadvantages, I will simply wrap up this blog entry with an excerpt from my journal. I won’t normally do this, but this excerpt from April 20, 2008, seems particularly appropriate.
It’s amazing how much one can observe – things that normally go completely unnoticed – when simply sitting still outside on a bright, sunny day. Birds chirping in communion with one another, a bee lighting on a fully-loaded yellow flower, the rhythmic brushes of a friendly breeze, that still ever quiet voice telling you everything will end up good despite how bad it may seem. I just wonder, how much of God’s beauty do I miss by keeping myself in such constant motion? Because when I am still before Him, I can actually hear Him. Maybe not in an audible voice, but in a slow, sublime way He reaches down into the depths of my soul and captures my attention, like for the first time, and reminds me of His beauty and His creative power, and of the unrelenting hold that His love has on me, of the truth that He is in control of everything, and that His word will never return to him void, to the point where I am utterly compelled to rejoice of His greatness and bow before Him in humble adoration while being renewed in my spirit the desire to sing and proclaim of His great glory to the end of the earth. Oh what majesty of God is revealed through simple quietness!
Sitting here between Memorial Day and July the Fourth, I’m feeling just a little more patriotic than usual. Therefore, today’s J.W. List will honor some of my favorite things Red, White, and Blue.
