Show Notes
In this episode, Derek Vreeland discusses the concept of living an unhurried life, emphasizing the importance of slowing down amidst the busyness of modern life. He shares personal experiences and insights from John Mark Comer’s book, ‘The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry,’ and explores practical steps to cultivate stillness and simplicity in daily life. The conversation highlights the spiritual and physical benefits of embracing a slower pace, including the significance of Sabbath rest and the need for balance between work and personal life.
Books mentioned in this episode:
The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer
Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard
Scriptures mentioned in this episode:
Psalm 46:10
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Transcript
Narrator: Welcome to Peaceable and Kind, the podcast where we explore the transformation. Each week your host, Derek Vreeland, will delve into the stories, scriptures, and practical steps that help us embody these essential Christian virtues.
Derek Vreeland: Welcome back to another episode of Peaceable and Kind. I am your host, Derek Vreeland. Thank you for joining me for this episode. And if you haven’t already. Go ahead and tap or click subscribe, leave a rating or review, that helps out a lot. And if you like Christian content like this, Let me encourage you to share this episode, particularly if you find value in it. I think you’re going to enjoy our topic today. We are going to talk about an unhurried life. On this episode, I want to encourage you to join me in a process of slowing down. And I will freely admit that I am not the master of an unhurried life I have worked towards it, particularly in the last 10 or 15 years. I have worked towards slowing down the pace of life But it’s challenging with work and family and other responsibilities. It’s difficult to slow down And we are headed towards a busy season. We have holidays that are coming up, Thanksgiving, the season of Advent, Christmas, New Year’s, all of that is right around the corner. And isn’t it true that the holiday season in particular really speeds things up? It seems like there is so much to be done. There’s planning and organization because there’s meals and there’s parties and there’s gatherings and there’s things to do. And so it seems like as we move towards the holidays, things get even busier. And so on this episode, I want to talk about what an unhurried life looks like. And so again, I will admit that for me, this is still aspirational. This is still a goal. I am still working towards it. In some ways, I feel almost even unqualified to talk to you about an unhurried life Because for the longest time, I personally used busy as a badge of honor. You know, people would ask, well, how are you doing? And it was an instinct. I would just say, well, I’m busy, because it seems like If I was busy, well, then I’m doing things, I’m producing things, I’m accomplishing things. But I’ve learned over the years that activity doesn’t necessarily equal accomplishment. Filling our schedules with appointments and meetings and tasks doesn’t necessarily mean we’re accomplishing the goals for our life And as a follower of Jesus, our goal is to grow in love, to love God and to love neighbor more. Our goal is to become like Jesus. We believe that Jesus is both fully God and also fully man. So Jesus shows us fully what God is like because he is the Son of God. But Jesus also became incarnate was born of the Virgin Mary, became a real human being like me and you. And so Jesus also shows us the way to be fully human So our goal is to be more like Jesus. And to that end, we need the practices of Jesus to become more like Jesus. We hold him out as our exemplar, as the model. And if we’re going to be like Jesus, we need the practices of Jesus. And when we look at Jesus, We see someone who lived an unhurried life. You know, Jesus living 2,000 years ago, probably never moved faster than two or three miles an hour. I mean, perhaps he rode a horse or had a chariot ride But I would imagine for Jesus and the peasant family that he came from, probably didn’t move any faster than his feet could take him. And not only in the the speed of his travel, but Jesus lived an unhurried life. And if that’s our model, if we want to be like Jesus. We don’t just need more and more activity. We need practices that will slow us down So what would it look like for you to slow down a bit and live an unhurried life? Earlier this fall, I led a five-week small group through material in John Mark Comer’s book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. We actually used a video series that was teaching from Comer, all based in his book. And this is a book that I highly recommend. The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer is in this beautiful orange cover. Um and it was a book that sat on my shelf for a number of years. I had purchased it when it came out. I’m a book lover and often I am buying books before I’ve read the books I’ve already purchased. Maybe you can uh relate. So that orange cover book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, it sat on my shelf for maybe a year and a half, maybe two years, and I would see it and think, I’m too busy to read that book Which is probably a good indication that I needed to read it. But the title itself, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, comes from Dallas Willard. Are you familiar with the work of Dallas Willard? Willard is such a treasure to the body of Christ. He died in 2013, but his books endure. I recommend in particular Renovation of the Heart, Putting on the Character of Christ by Dallas Willard. That is a classic book. If you want to explore this spirit-driven process of spiritual transformation Uh, Willard has deeply impacted uh my life and and how I pastor and how I think about the Holy Spirit’s work of of forming us that we might be more like Jesus. So I highly recommend Renovation of the Heart by Willard. But John Mark Comer takes a line from Willard, not from one of his books, but in a conversation that Dallas Willard had with John Ortberg. another pastor, author, writer uh that I’ve read who has influenced me, but Ortberg was talking on the phone with Dallas Willard, and this was the time when John Ortberg was working at Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago. one of the most influential mega churches. Particularly its influence was felt in the 1990s and into the new millennium And Ortberg was working at Willow Creek and feeling a bit of the strain um and feeling like he was falling into the mega church trap of more activity, more programs. And John Mark Comer in his book records the conversation. Ortberg had told Comer about this conversation. And so early on in Comer’s book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, He says that John is asking, John Ortberg is asking Willard, what can he do? And then Willard responds, You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life. Willard goes on to say, There is nothing else. Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life Such wise words from Dallas Willard. And that one line, well, that became the seed that produced this book from John Mark Comer And in it, Comer is calling for us to slow down. You know, the word slow has become a bad word. Right? When a movie begins to drag, you know, we flip back over to the menu to find something else because we say that movie was slow. Uh traffic is aggravating when it’s stop and go and the pace becomes slow. But slow in the spiritual life is not bad, if you think about it. The coming of the kingdom of God is slow. Jesus talks about the kingdom growing like a seed that’s planted. Um loving one another is slow. Prayer is slow. The production of the fruit of the Spirit, that’s slow. Forgiveness and peacemaking. All of this activity in the spiritual life is slow. And if we’re going to be fully human and fully alive, if we’re going to become like Jesus, then we do need to slow down. Because a hurried life is dehumanizing. You know, we start to believe the lie that we are human doings instead of human beings when we get hurried. The truth is that we are both being and doing, but our primary identity rests in in who we are. A hurried life gives us no time to listen. We end up in conversation talking past each other in a hurried form of communication. We are rushing to speak instead of listening A hurried life leaves little room for healthy friendships. We don’t have time to catch a cup of coffee with a friend or Jump on the phone at night with a friend who lives out of state to maintain that friendship if we’re living a hurried life For me, I’ve learned that a rushed decision is often a wrong decision And so I know when I’m living at a hurried pace of life, I’m making rushed decisions. A lot of my mistakes have happened when I’ve rushed my decision making. And a hurried life cuts us off from the simple joys of life. When we’re so hurried, we can’t enjoy simple things like the taste of food Does anybody eat fast or is that just me? I have a horrible habit of eating too fast. If I go out to Chipotle with friends. and uh I typically order a burrito, most of my friends will order a bowl. I’ll have my burrito eaten before they have two bites down of their bowl. And I’m not advocating this. Again, I’m confessing my sins to you. But this is what happens when we’re living at a hurried pace of life. We can’t enjoy the simple things of life. It A hurried life reduces our attention span, right? We can’t sit down and read a whole book because we need to move on to the next thing And ultimately, a hurried life leads to exhaustion, burnout, and anxiety All of which can lead to heart disease and physical ailments. I mean, heart disease is still the number one killer of Americans, and maybe one factor in that is we are just too hurried. And so I want us to turn to the wisdom of the Psalms, just one verse from the Psalms. It’s Psalm forty six ten, which says Be still and know that I am God. I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth. Think about that verse for just a moment. Be still and know that I am God. Really, we only need the opening line of that verse In fact, we only really need those first two words of Psalm 4610. Be still I think that there are practices that can be found in that simple phrase, be still. And so let me share with you at least eight practices, four of which are connected to the be, and four practices connected to the still So if we’re going to live an unhurried life, we need to be still. Let’s look at those practices. First, the four under the banner of be or being. And the first practice would be believe. If we’re going to live an unhurried life, we need to believe what is true about us. And that is, first and foremost, that we are human beings created by God in the image of God, full of worth and dignity And in Jesus, what we discover is that we are loved by God. Often we live a hurried life because we’re trying to prove our worth But if we’re going to be still, that starts with beliefs. Believing that our worth and dignity, our significance, is not a matter of what we can produce. But it is who we are. You are who God says you are. And in Christ that means you are beloved. That you are valued, that you are treasured, that you are forgiven, that you are in God’s family, you are a son or a daughter of God. I love the words that we hear from God the Father at the baptism of Jesus. When Jesus is baptized, we hear. A voice from heaven, God the Father speaking, saying, This is my beloved Son. In him I am well pleased. And so if you’re a follower of Jesus, if you have found yourself in Christ, then what is said about Jesus is also said about you. That you are God’s beloved, and in Christ you are well pleasing to God There is nothing that we can do to cause God to love us anymore, and there’s nothing we can do to cause God to love us any less. the only disposition God has towards us is one of love. Now we have to choose to respond to that love in the right way. If we respond to the love of God with love, Then we experience what the church calls salvation or redemption or regeneration. But if we respond to the love of God with contempt or apathy, if we say no thanks to the love of God, then we find ourselves going in a lonely direction. And that ends in a place of condemnation and destruction. So if we’re going to be still, the first practice under be is believe. The second practice is breathe. I have found the simple art of slowing down my mind, slowing down my anxious thoughts, the different emotions in my heart. by simply taking a deep breath. Now this is not specific to Christian spirituality Nearly everyone recognizes the physiological effects of taking a deep breath and exhaling. Right. So if you’ve raised kids, you know that. If your kids are getting all wound up and you’re trying to communicate, what do we say? Stop, take a breath. But in the Bible, there are two different words that are translated, breathe or breath, and it’s the Hebrew word ruach and the Greek word pneuma And it’s interesting that those two words, one in Hebrew, one in Greek, for breath, are also the words translated spirit. And I can’t completely explain the connection. I just know that it’s true. So when I begin prayer in the morning, The first thing I do, well, pause. The first thing I do is make a cup of coffee because faith without coffee is dead. Put that on a t-shirt. That’s true. So the first thing I do is is I make a cup of coffee and I get my Bible. I have a prayer book. I also have a little reader’s guide that has um scripture verses to read every day, a daily office lectionary. So I I gather my my books, I get my cup of coffee, I usually pray in the same chair in our living room early in the morning. And before I address God, I take three deep breaths, I exhale, and I offer an affirmation or confession to God. And I have learned that even in the morning when I first get up, I want to start doing. I want to grab my phone. I want to check email. I want to check social media. I want to read the news. I want to do and consume. And so even if it’s early in the morning, I’ve learned before I pray, I need to breathe. And in taking those deep breaths and exhaling, it causes my mind. My heart and even my body to relax. So if we’re going to be still, second practice under B is to breathe. The third practice is balance That is finding a balance between work and rest, a balance between work and play, a balance between work and family. the things that are most valuable to us. Now of course work is important. We have some kind of job. And even if you’re retired, I am sure there is some kind of work before you in the creation narrative. God gives Adam a job even before the snake enters the garden. He was to tend the garden and name the animals. He had work to do. So work itself is not bad. But if you are like me, average Americans tend to lean towards workaholism Where we work and work and work. And now we have people getting a side hustle, a second job, they’re working online, in addition to their primary job. We need balance Which means we have to say no to some opportunities so that we can say yes to rest and play and recreation and time with our family. I have not always been the best at this. It’s hard for me sometimes to flex my no muscle when people ask me to uh read something or write something or uh produce some kind of content. So the third practice under B is balance, a work rest, a workplay balance. And then following on the heels of that, the fourth practice is break. Taking a break. If we’re going to be still, we need habits and rhythms of break time. In the Christian and Jewish tradition, a break looks like Sabbath. Sabbath is a Hebrew word, so it comes from the Jewish tradition, that can be translated different ways. It means stop, Ceasing from activity, it means rest, but in the Jewish and Christian tradition, Sabbath means taking a twenty-four-hour period of time for not work, not our normal activity, but rest, uh play, um delight, finding things that we delight in, things that fill us up with joy And of course, worship. Now, for most uh Christians, a Sabbath day of rest is the Lord’s Day on Sunday. So you go to church for worship, and then there is a day for play. So for me as a pastor, Sunday is a workday, so I have worked towards keeping Friday as a day of Sabbath rest. And I will confess I’ve been cheating a little bit on my Sabbath. I too have side projects. Currently I’m writing a Bible study series, and I do most of my writing in the morning on Friday. Now, when I say I cheat on the Sabbath, writing this Bible study series brings me great delight. I enjoy it immensely, but it is still work. And I will also say that it’s okay to cheat on your Sabbath. In other words, the Sabbath isn’t to be a legalistic rule, but rather a tradition that allows us to take a break. God did not design our bodies to work seven days a week. God in creation formed the world and the universe in six days, but on the seventh day God rested. So we need to take a break. Now let’s go back to Psalm 46, 10, the opening lines. Be still and know that I am God. I think there’s four practices under the be in being still, and then there’s four practices under still. Let’s talk about those. The first practice I see when it comes to stillness is slowing down Slowness. Slowing down does require that we create margin in our schedule Slowing down reminds us that we are not limitless. That’s God. We’re not Limitless in our energy and power. That’s only God. We are creatures with limitations. We can’t do everything. So we do need to flex our no muscle and say no to some activity. And then think about your daily schedule and how can you create margins. That is gaps of time in between activities. That will help us slow down. The second practice under still in be still would be soak That is to soak in the presence of God. I have worked, and it has been the last seven or eight years, I have been very intentional Particularly on my day of Sabbath, which is Friday, to have moments where I simply soak in the presence of God. And often this happens for me outdoors. I enjoy jogging and biking, backpacking, even walking local trails here in my hometown. And on Friday, before I write and move on to the rest of my rest day, I either go for a long run or a long bike ride. Uh depending on the weather, I like to be outdoors because if I can catch a sunrise or in the season of fall when the leaves are changing colors and I can catch a beautiful tree that has oranges and reds and yellows and its its leaves, or if I can get out on a trail in a in a deep forest. Even in the winter Fresh fallen snow in the winter. If I can capture these beautiful moments in creation, for me, that helps me soak in the presence of God. There’s something about the beauty of creation that reminds me that God is here, that God is with us, and that God loves us. The third of the practices under still is simplify And this does go along with the slowing down. I think slowing down and simplifying are somewhat connected. But the truth is the more stuff we have, the more stress we have. And so this practice is recognizing that we don’t need everything. Jesus said life does not exist in the abundance of possessions. And so Simplify is a practice where we look at the things in our lives and ask, what do we really need? To sustain life, what do we need that brings us joy? What are those extra things that are just creating more stress in our lives? Do you remember the days when we didn’t have multiple mobile devices and computers and laptops and smart TVs and smart watches and don’t get me wrong, I enjoy all that technology. But it seems like the more of that we have, the more stress we have, particularly when things stop working. So if we’re going to live an unhurried life, we need practices of generosity. A part of simplifying our lives is giving things away. One of the things my wife and I do, at least once a year, if not twice a year, is we go into the closet. And we go to the back of the closet and we see what clothes are we not wearing regularly? You know, those clothes always get pushed way to the back. And who can we give that to? As our kids have grown up, uh for example, our youngest is now in high school. My wife gathered all of his middle school t shirts and gave those away to a family uh that has a student going to that middle school. To simplify, it means to create margins and to give things away. And the final practice under still is Sabbath. The final practice under B was break, and I talked about the Sabbath, but I wanted to repeat it here. that the most important thing we can do is to pick a 24-hour period where we are not doing work And again, don’t be legalistic with it. I’m not here to argue, should you Sabbath on a Saturday, on a Sunday? You go to church whichever day you want to go. But the tradition of taking a day off has been for me so life-giving Yes, you’re not producing. Yes, that means when you get back to work, you’ll have an inbox full of emails. But I promise you that if you will practice Sabbath rest one day a week, I think you’ll begin to see your life slowing down. So have I challenged you today? Are there things before you that you can rethink? I hope so. I hope as we move into the holiday season that you can slow down a little bit, live an unhurried life, and experience the joy of being This great gift of life that God has given us, and this gift of a new life given to us in Jesus Christ. Well, that’s it for today. That’s all we have. Thank you for listening to this episode. Go in peace and be kind.
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.