Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was. Then after this He said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again." John 11:5-7 (NKJV)
One day a deacon walked into the pastor’s office and found the pastor furiously pacing back and forth. With deep concern he asked the pastor, “Brother, what is the matter?”. To which the pastor replied, “Friend I am in a terrible hurry.”. The deacon looked at the pastor and asked again, “But brother, what is the matter?”. Sighing deeply the pastor replied “God isn’t!”.
In today’s world, everyone seems to be in a hurry. We rush and rush trying to get to the next event, and when we get there we rush right on through. We have lost touch with meaningful relationships, conversations and the overall enjoyment of life. We’re stuck in such a high gear that even our “Rest and Relaxation” has to punch a clock. We look around and see life blurring by and we thing that means we aren’t keeping up; we thing life is passing us by, when it is really the other way around.
Satan is a tricky old devil; he knows he cannot stop us from following God and trying to live good lives that reflect Christ. So he whispers ever so gently in our ears, “You are not doing enough, there is so much that needs to be done, and you are so far behind.” So we crowd our life with so many things to do that we give our heart to nothing and we just rush, rush, rush. We build stress and make poor choices causing us to end up burned out, on the verge of a heart attack. We get so caught up trying to achieve “important” goals that we have lost sight of what is truly important: spending quality time with God, our families and our friends. All the while Satan is, ROFL (for those who aren’t familiar with txt lingo that’s: Rolling on the floor laughing).
I am just as guilty as the next guy when it comes to the “hurry disease”. So I for one think it is time that we look at Christ’s example; when Jesus received news of His dear friend Lazarus’ sickness everyone expected him to hurry to the rescue. Instead He waited two days to start on the journey. By the time Jesus got to Lazarus, he had been dead for four days; Jesus was four days late, or so they thought. Then God worked a miracle and revived a dead man. He was right on time.
Let me try to break down my logic really briefly. God doesn’t change, He still isn’t in a hurry, and He still works in “His” time and not our time. Therefore, we need to “Hurry up and slow down”. We need to stop trying to fix it all and stop trying to fit everything into our schedules. We need to take our time enjoy life and be who we are meant to be, little children of God. We need to stop trying to run the show, and let God be God; He does a much better job at it anyway.
