“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” –Matthew 11:28-30
My life was always busy growing up. Nights that my family wasn’t running off to one place or another were few and far between. I like to be busy. I like to feel important. I like to work hard. This past year has really challenged me to reflect on why I like the busyness.
To be candid, 2024 was a hard year for me. It was beautiful and amazing—I got married and moved to a new city. But it was also the year I quit my dream job, moved away from my family, moved away from my friends, left a church that I had finally started feeling at home in, and started a brand new life in a place where I knew no one.
Not only was my entire life up in the air, but I was also beginning to feel burned out from a life of constant go-go-go. I was working 10-hour days more often than I should have been, planning a wedding, maintaining friendships, and raising a puppy. I was living my life at what seemed like 90 miles an hour. The pace felt fine enough—I was doing okay. I was getting things done and achieving what I thought I wanted, but I was growing farther from relationship with God. How?? I was working in ministry! I thought I had found the fast-track to holy perfection! Okay... I wasn’t quite that naive, but you get the idea.
I had been romanticizing the idea of a “busy” life. If you asked me how my day was or how things were going before 2024, odds are that I would have answered, “Oh, you know, busy!” Saying things were busy gave me an opportunity to avoid real conversations about how things really were without bending the truth because it was true: My life was busy!
But in all of the busyness, I realized time in prayer and time spent in the Word and time dwelling with God had fallen pretty low on my list of priorities. I realized that busy was not how I wanted people to see Christ through me. I wanted them to see loving, kind, peaceful, and joyful.
In one of his books, Pastor John Ortberg said, “For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them.”
One of my favorite books that I read in 2024 was The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer. In this book, one of the practical tips he gives is to physically slow yourself down in order to practice rest and presence. Some of his suggestions are to drive at the speed limit, get into the slow lane in traffic, pick the longest checkout line at the grocery store, show up early to an appointment without using your phone while you wait, stop trying to multitask, etc. Throughout 2024, I tried to do some of these on a regular basis and discovered that, actually, I don’t want to be in such a hurry all the time. And I realized that doing some of these things allowed me to better love my neighbors. If I am not in a rush at the checkout line, I can let a stranger who seems anxious to get to their next stop go ahead of me. If I am not in a hurry when I drive places, I find I have more peace and patience and can even pray for those driving past me at fast speeds. Love takes time, and hurry convinces you that you don’t have time.
Is hurrying preventing you from loving others well?
How will you challenge yourself to slow down and practice presence with God in 2025?
Working on slowing down,
Maddie Pease