I can remember the days when I worked so hard and hurried so much that even if I took a vacation, it was almost over by the time I geared down enough to rest. Hurry was definitely one of the Peace Stealers in my life and still can be, if I do not stay alert to its pressure.
Life is too precious to rush through it. I find at times that a day has gone by in a blur; at the conclusion of it I know I was very busy all day yet cannot really remember enjoying much, if any, of it. I have committed to learn to do things in God’s rhythm, not the world’s pace.
Jesus was never in a hurry when He was here on earth, and God is absolutely not in a hurry now. Ecclesiastes 3:1 states, “TO EVERYTHING there is a season, and a time for every matter or purpose under heaven.” We should let each thing in our lives have its season and realize we can enjoy that season without rushing into the next one.
It is permissible to enjoy our morning coffee or tea without feeling we must hurry to get to the next thing. We can get dressed calmly without rushing. We can leave the house in a timely fashion, without frantically running out the door already behind schedule. Rushing is a bad habit, but we can break bad habits and form good ones to replace them.
The way we get a day started is important. Often how we start is how the entire day goes. I have found if I allow the “hurry-up” spirit to grab me early in the day, everything within me gets into high gear, and I never seem to slow down or really relax the rest of the day. Hurry creates pressure that in turn creates stress.
Stress is the root cause of many illnesses and is therefore something each one of us desperately needs to resolve. God did not create us to hurry, rush, live under pressure and stress day after day. Jesus said, “My peace I leave with you.” He wants us to have peace.
Pace is very important in life. Our pace not only affects us but others around us. I don’t like to be around people who are always in a rush; they are usually short-tempered and impatient. They certainly don’t minister peace. They make me feel as if I also need to hurry, which I am desperately trying to avoid.
I have noticed in fine-dining restaurants that the hostess who seats people walks very slowly while leading customers to their tables. The waiters or waitresses don’t rush the table for orders; they give you plenty of time to think. I am sure this is because they want the customers to enjoy their experience, and they know that will not be possible if they are rushed.
When following one of the hostesses who is exuding peace simply by the way she walks me to the table, often I am behind her thinking, Get going, you’re moving too slow. Then I am reminded (I am sure by the Holy Spirit) that I don’t need to be in a hurry to enjoy the nice meal I am about to pay for.
Our pace of living affects the quality of our lives. When we eat too fast, we don’t properly digest our food; when we rush through life, we don’t properly digest it either. God has given life to us as a gift, and what a pitiful shame to do nothing but rush through each day and never, as they say, “stop to smell the roses.” Each thing we do in life has a sweet fragrance, and we should learn to take it into ourselves and enjoy the aroma.
RUSHING BEGINS IN THE MIND
Rushing begins in the mind, just as all actions do. I have to hurry is a thought pattern we should avoid. When other people say to us, “Hurry up!” we can learn to resist following their suggestion or demand. It unsettles us and makes us feel rushed when thoughts constantly fly through our minds, one following upon another (especially thoughts that go in many different directions).
Those of us who have a bad habit of rushing need to decide that we don’t have to do this. We can do only one thing at a time! When we hurry, we make more mistakes and often forget things that end up costing us more time than we would have used had we maintained a godly pace.
Did you know that you can think things on purpose? You can choose what you think about, and by doing so you help assure what your actions will be. Yes, you can purposefully think thoughts such as I don’t have to hurry. I have time to do whatever I need to do. Speaking such affirmations out loud is also helpful.
Positive statements help give direction for future actions. Get up in the morning, and as soon as you feel rushed, say, “I am glad I don’t have to hurry. I have all the time I need. I will do things today at a pace that enables me to enjoy each task.”
This may sound strange, but the Bible teaches us to speak of the nonexistent things that God has foretold and promised as if they already exist (see Romans 4:17). God created the world with words, our words also hold creative power; words affect our futures. Take a step of faith, and try saying what you want, not just what you have at the current time, and I believe you will enjoy positive results.
If we feel hurried, we usually say, “I am so sick and tired of hurrying all the time! That is all I ever do: hurry, hurry, hurry.” Statements like those may be facts describing the way things are, but circumstances don’t have to stay that way. I repeat, say what you want, not what you have.
Peace of mind must precede peace in our lives. This verse promises perfect peace to those who keep their minds on God: “You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You” (Isaiah 26:3).
Thinking too much about everything we have to do sets the wheels in motion for rushing. We often feel overwhelmed when we think of all the future will require of us. This type of thinking is called anxiety. As we discussed earlier, when we spend today trying to figure out tomorrow, we struggle simply because God gives us grace, which is His strength and power, one day at a time. When we try to live tomorrow today, even if only in our minds, we feel pressured and begin to lose peace.
We will never enjoy the peaceful and fruitful lives that God intends for us unless we learn to think right. I repeat what I have said on many occasions: Where the mind goes, the man follows.
LEARN TO LIVE WITH MARGIN
Living without margin is one of the main reasons we feel we need to hurry. To live with margin means to leave room on either side of planned events or appointments to take care of unexpected things that come up. We seem to plan our days in an unrealistic way, as if everything will go exactly according to our plans and desires, which it never does. One unplanned phone call or traffic jam can change our entire timetable. One set of misplaced car keys can upset a whole day’s scheduling.
I was feeling tremendously rushed every day at the office. I raced in and flew through my many appointments, and I am sure that I made all the people I met with feel as if I could hardly wait to get rid of them. I was always behind schedule and never got finished. At the end of every day, I was frustrated and went home feeling totally drained. It was so bad that I actually got to the point where I literally despised even going to the office.
Then I learned about the principle of adding margin to my life, and I feel like a new person. I told my secretary that I wanted her to find out how much time each person who needed to meet with me felt he would require, and then just add ten to fifteen minutes to each appointment. This margin would cover any unexpected things that came up during the meeting, and if we didn’t use the margin, it would be an extra blessing.
Now, one of our managers might be scheduled to meet with me for one hour, but when we finish in forty minutes, it is glorious! I almost always get finished with my day’s schedule and usually have some time to spare. Adding margin has been one of the biggest blessings in my life. I was always the type of person who never wanted to waste one moment, therefore, I planned everything to the second so I had no downtime.
If Dave and I needed to be on a flight leaving at ten o’clock, I wanted to arrive at 9:30 or 9:45, rush through the ticket counter, run down the hall, and hurry to get on the plane. Dave refused to do this because he is not a person who is willing to hurry. He has one pace—it is called Peaceful. He insisted we arrive at the airport no less than one hour early; this caused many arguments between us liter
ally for years. I must say, though, that he was right, and I was wrong.
Having breathing room between planned events of the day is healthy, and it is actually mandatory if one is intending to enjoy his or her life.
One of the worst things a person can become is a busy man or woman. I have noticed upon meeting people and asking how they are that most respond, “Busy,” and many say, “Tired.” Surely life is meant to be more. If our testimony of life is “I’m busy and tired,” that is very sad indeed.
Margin is another word for wisdom. It makes absolutely no sense to live without it, and nothing truly succeeds without it. We know from experience that we always encounter things we did not plan for, so why not plan for the unplanned, which is what margin is?
KNOW YOUR LIMITS
We are not all alike, nor do we all have the same tolerance level. Some people, by virtue of their temperaments or even natural stamina, can do more than others. Know yourself, and don’t be ashamed to admit you have limits. Don’t try to keep up with some other busy person you know—just be yourself.
I can accomplish a lot; I thrive on activity. Some of the people who work with me comment often that they don’t know how I do all that I do. God has given me a lot of natural drive, and I am very passionate about what I am called to do; but I have had to face the fact that I have my limits, and so does everyone else.
I spent years pushing past my limits and eventually became ill and very discouraged, thinking, If this is all life is, I would rather go to heaven. After pushing myself beyond reason and becoming very ill three different times, I knew I needed to change.
I finally admitted I had limits and saw that it was not wrong to have them. I had to face the fact that I was not able to do everything I or other people wanted me to do. I had to make choices just like everyone else. I had to be willing to say no to people who wanted to hear yes, and even to things I really wanted to do.
High achievers often feel it is a personal failure to say, “I can’t do any more than I am doing.” That is, of course, wrong thinking, and Satan uses condemnation to destroy people. Many “driven” people are just insecure people who are getting their worth and value from their accomplishments in life.
I heard a story about a woman who worked in a shipyard, and her job was cleaning the ships. She believed that her job had value because she was doing it, not that her value was based on the job she did. This gave her wonderful freedom to enjoy herself, her job, and all of life. Many people would feel belittled by her job, but not her—she knew she had value. Our attitudes about ourselves really do affect all of our lives.
Learning that my worth and value are rooted in God through Christ has been life-changing. Quite often, people strive to have prestigious jobs so they feel important; this causes a lot of heartache in life. I know because I experienced it. I once was seeking promotion and success, but for all the wrong reasons. We could all learn a lesson from this woman’s story. You make what you do important; you are not important because you do it.
I believe that some people don’t have peace with themselves because they actually don’t approve of themselves, and they overcommit while trying to find worth. They stay busy trying to accomplish something that will make them feel important and valuable. When we come to terms of peace with ourselves, we don’t have to live to impress people; we are free to follow the Holy Spirit, who always leads us into peace and balanced living.
“I can do all things through Christ” (Philippians 4:13 KJV) doesn’t mean what some people try to make it mean. We can do what we are called to do, but we cannot do everything we would like to do, nor everything everyone else would like us to do. We have limits! God Himself has placed these limits on us. Only He has no limits. He gives us the energy and grace to do what He wants us to do. Jesus said He came that we might have and enjoy life, and I don’t believe that is possible as long as we are rushing.
God gives us all gifts and talents, but they are not all the same. The Giver of the gifts is the same, but the gifts differ. He hands them out according to His will and for His overall purpose in life. God makes sure that everything in life is taken care of.
Sometimes Dave and I notice people doing jobs like washing windows on high-rise buildings or walking on construction beams high in the air, and we marvel that God calls someone to do every task that needs to be done. We would not want to do what these people seem to enjoy doing, but then they probably would not want to do what we do either. It has been helpful to me to realize that God gives us all talents and limits. We can do well and with peace only what God has assigned to us. Being overcommitted in order to feel good about ourselves is not wisdom and will never minister peace.
According to James Dobson, overcommitment is the number-one marriage killer. I have discovered that Satan wants us to be either uncommitted or overcommitted. His entire goal is to keep us out of balance, one way or the other. First Peter 5:8 says, “Be well balanced . . . for that enemy of yours, the devil, roams around like a lion roaring . . . seeking someone to . . . devour.” Satan cannot devour just anyone; he has to find someone who is out of balance.
The world applauds our being overcommitted, but heaven doesn’t. A busy person with too much to do is usually considered a success by the world’s standards, but not by God’s. How can we be successful if we fail at relationships (which are usually what suffer the most in the life of a busy person)? Most extremely busy people don’t even take the time to really know themselves, let alone anyone else.
What is the point in parenting children if they are all going to be strangers to you? Why be married if you never have anything left of yourself to share with your marriage partner? I can remember coming home so tired each night that I could not even think, let alone have meaningful conversation. I thought I was doing my duty, being responsible—but now I realize I was being deceived, and the deception was aimed at destroying the life Jesus desired for me to have.
Don’t give your family and friends the scraps you have left over while you give the world your best. The world will let you down in the end. It will take everything you have and disappear when you are in need. I don’t mean to sound cynical, but even Scripture verifies my comment. Solomon wrote, “So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a striving after the wind and a feeding on it. And I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will succeed me” (Ecclesiastes 2:17-18).
The writer of Ecclesiastes was a “busy” man, one who tried everything that could be tried and did everything there was to do. Yet, at the end of his experience, he was unfulfilled and bitter.
How many people have given all of themselves to something that never gave anything back? A great example of this is what motivational teachers refer to as “climbing the ladder to success only to find that it was leaning against the wrong building.” It’s true, I’ve never heard of any person who has said on his or her deathbed, “Gee, I really wish I had spent more time at the office.”
I recently talked with a woman in ministry whom I have known for many years. I saw her at one of my conferences and noticed right away that she seemed unhappy and totally worn-out. The joy, zeal, and enthusiasm she had previously were no longer there. I invited her to come early the next day and speak with me.
When I asked her if she was all right, she told me that she had a serious case of burnout. She said, “For the first time, I am not enjoying everyday life. I have worked so hard and given myself to meet everyone’s needs without requiring anything for myself. Now I am bordering on being bitter and fighting the temptation to quit and give up.”
This woman needed balance; she needed to review all of her commitments and see which ones were really producing the fruit she was called to produce. Not everything that seems good is actually God’s will for an individual. In fact, good is often the enemy of the best. We can easily lose our focus and get sidetracked. We are busy all the time, we work hard, but we don’t g
et the things accomplished that minister fulfillment to us as individuals.
I believe when we are in the will of God and giving ourselves to what He has called us to do, we will sense satisfaction and fulfillment. We will get tired, but it will be a tired we recover from, not one that never goes away. When we are flowing in God’s will, our schedules always leave time for good relationships.
Great relationships are one of the most precious treasures in life, but we must feed them regularly by putting time into them. If you find you have no time to develop and maintain strong, intimate relationships with God, with yourself, and with your family and friends, then you are absolutely too busy.
We all need to take a serious inventory of what we are doing with our time, get out the pruning shears, and as the Spirit of God leads, cut things out of our lives until we no longer have to rush. Then we will be able to live with peace and joy.
Realizing that we have limits and cannot do everything, and then making choices to do what is most important, will definitely increase our level of peace. Peace equals power; without it, we live weak, frustrated lives. Remember, we should strive to let the peace of God rule in our lives as an umpire. If we have peace, we can keep doing what we are doing, but if we do not have peace, we know we need to make a change. If you hear yourself complaining all the time, it is an indication that you need to make some adjustments. If you are doing what God wants you to do, you should not be complaining about it.
TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR SCHEDULE
I remember murmuring about my schedule to the Lord, complaining how terribly busy I always was. He responded in my heart by saying, “You make your schedule. If you don’t like it, change it. I never told you that you had to do all the things you are doing.” He put the responsibility right back on me.