Choosing a Slower Lane

A Tacoma, Washington, newspaper carried the story of Tattoo the basset hound a while back. Tattoo didn’t intend to go for an evening run, but when his owner shut the dog’s leash in the car door and took off for a drive with Tattoo still outside the vehicle, he had no choice.

Motorcycle officer Terry Filbert noticed a passing vehicle with something dragging behind it, “the basset hound picking them up and putting them down as fast as he could.” He chased the car to a stop, and Tattoo was rescued, but not before the dog had reached a speed of 20-25 miles per hour, rolling over several times.

Too many pastors end up living like Tattoo, their days marked by picking them up and putting them down as fast as they can.

It’s time to learn another way to live. To do that, we must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from our lives. As much as we complain about it, though, there’s part of us that is drawn to a hurried life. It makes us feel important. It keeps the adrenaline pumping. It means I don’t have to look too closely at my heart or life. It keeps us from feeling our loneliness. As long as I have meetings to attend and occasions to preach and teach, I can demonstrate that I am an important person.

“The press of busyness is like a charm,” Kierkegaard wrote. “Its power swells … it reaches out, seeking always to lay hold of ever-younger victims so that childhood or youth are scarcely allowed the quiet and the retirement in which the Eternal may unfold a divine growth.”

Hurry, then, is not just a disordered schedule. Hurry is a disordered heart.

We don’t have to live this way. The hurried can become unhurried. But it will not happen by trying alone, nor will it happen instantly. You will have to enter a life of training.

One useful practice might be called “slowing.” This involves cultivating patience by deliberately choosing to place yourself in positions where you have to wait. For instance, over the next few days or weeks, try these:

Deliberately drive in the slow lane on the expressway. It may be that not swerving from lane to lane will cause you to arrive five minutes later. But you will find that you don’t get nearly so angry at other drivers. Instead of trying to pass them, say a little prayer as they go by, asking God to bless them.
Declare a fast from honking. Put your horn under a vow of silence. (One author writes about the world’s shortest unit of time, the honkosecond: the amount of time that elapses after the light turns green and before the car behind you honks.)
Eat your food slowly. Force yourself to chew at least 15 times before each swallow.
At the grocery store, discover which check-out line is the longest, and get in it. Then let one person go in front of you.
Reread a book. In our day we have largely traded wisdom for information. We keep reading more and thinking less. David Donald notes in his biography of Abraham Lincoln that Lincoln grew up with access to few books: the Bible, Aesop’s Fables, and a few others. Portions of these he read over and over, until, as Lincoln’s stepmother remembered, “he never lost that fact or the understanding of it.” His law partner said, “Lincoln read less and thought more than any man in his sphere in America.”
Take an hour simply to be with God. Don’t use this time to prepare messages or do strategic planning. Don’t use this time at all. Simply be with God.

In short, find ways to choose waiting deliberately that make hurry impossible. As you practice them, tell God you are trusting he will enable you to accomplish all you need to get done. Often people worry that if they don’t rush, they will accomplish less. In fact, researchers have found that there is simply no correlation between hurry and productivity. You will discover you can survive without hurry.

John Ortberg is teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois.

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