My sabbatical started fast.
I had one day to shift from work to a 13-hour road trip. Bill and I left at 4:45 a.m. to drive to Oklahoma City for my niece’s wedding. And somewhere along Interstate 44, it became clear that this road trip was naming both the life I’ve been living… and the life God longs for me to live instead.
The unhurried life.
Bill and I move at very different paces. We always have.
When we’re talking, there are times I feel like I can’t get the words from my head to my mouth fast enough. Bill, on the other hand, takes his time answering a question, forming his words, thinking through his next move. After thirty years together, I still find myself breathing deeply sometimes, resisting the urge to push him to get to the point faster.
Lately, though, I’ve noticed something else about him that has really challenged me.
He’s driving slower.
And on our road trip to OKC, it really showed up.
We took turns driving. When Bill drove, he barely drove the speed limit. He stayed in the slow lane and just took his time. When I drove? I drove at least five miles over the speed limit. And when we reached the toll turnpike outside Tulsa and I saw the speed limit sign read 80 mph, I shouted “WHOO HOO!” loud enough to startle Bill — and yes, I pushed that pedal to 85.
Always moving.
Always trying to get there faster.
I like arriving early. I like checking things off the list. I like efficiency. Productivity. Momentum.
But somewhere between Tulsa and Oklahoma City, I realized something uncomfortable:
A hurried life is not the life Jesus lived.
And maybe it isn’t the life Jesus invites us to live either.
On a last-minute whim before leaving home, I bought the book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer.
Just wow.
I didn’t realize how much I needed this book.
There’s so much wisdom in it that I want to share — and I probably will, little by little.
What’s the rush, right?
One line especially has stayed with me:
“Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life.”
I keep turning that sentence over in my mind because, if I’m honest, I have spent much of my life hurrying.
Not always physically. Sometimes the hurry lives deeper than the calendar.
It lives in the mind that cannot settle.
The spirit that feels guilty for resting.
The quiet fear that if we stop moving, something important might fall apart.
And yet Jesus never seemed hurried.
He walked.
That language matters.
Jesus says, “Follow me.”
Not “Catch up.”
Not “Move faster.”
Follow.
To follow Jesus is to become his apprentice — to learn not only what he taught, but how he lived. And the life of Jesus was marked by an unhurried presence. He stopped for people. He noticed things. He withdrew to lonely places to pray. He lingered at tables. He walked dusty roads slowly enough to encounter the hurting and overlooked along the way.
Love, joy, and peace sit at the center of Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom of God.
And all three are incompatible with hurry.
Hurry steals our attention. And attention may now be our scarcest resource — even more than time or money.
We live in an age of constant noise: iPhones, Wi-Fi, notifications, breaking news, endless scrolling, fast lanes, faster expectations. We were promised that all our technology and labor-saving devices would give us more time, but somehow we have less.
Once, leisure was considered a sign of wealth.
Now busyness has become the badge we wear to prove our importance.
Gandhi once said,
“There is more to life than increasing its speed.”
I think Jesus knew that.
Because hurry does more than exhaust us. It slowly reshapes us.
Hurry kills relationships because love takes time.
Hurry kills joy because joy requires attention to the goodness of the moment.
Hurry kills gratitude because gratitude cannot survive in a distracted heart.
Hurry even kills wisdom, because wisdom is born slowly — in quietness, contemplation, and deep listening.
So perhaps the deeper question underneath all of this is not simply:
“How do I slow down?”
But:
Who am I becoming in this hurried life?
This sabbatical, I want to practice a different way of being.
To walk instead of run.
To pay attention.
To not be afraid of moments that look “unproductive.”
To sit quietly long enough for my soul to catch up with my body.
I’m still processing so much of this. My thoughts aren’t fully organized yet.
But maybe that’s part of slowing down too.
Not rushing clarity.
Not forcing conclusions.
Not hurrying past what God is trying to show me.
After all… there’s no rush.
The wedding was beautiful. Time with our kids was a true gift. Laughing with family. Sitting around tables with food and new friends. I took in every single moment and relished. Rested in it. Didn’t rush one moment.
The drive home was different. We stopped often. I drove in the slow lane. Oh I was tempted, often to speed past that annoying semi. Small steps.
A Season of Holy Noticing 