Addicted to Hurry

Excerpt from “Waiting on the Lord Involves…Waiting” by Richard Foster

The writer to the Hebrews urges us to “run with patience the race that is set before us†(12:1).

The post-modern person is addicted to haste, hurry, hustle. And the addiction shrivels our soul. Our desperate need today is for a time-full life (One that makes space and time within the hurry and hustle of life). When we are fractured and fragmented with “muchness†and “manyness†we cannot experience a time-full life. When we chaff (sic) under the “slowness†of our microwaves and our computers it becomes nearly impossible for us to obey the divine Whisper, “Be still and know that I am God†(Ps. 46:10). Some things simply will not yield to our perpetual hankering for the instant, the immediate, the sudden. Surely the growth of our soul before God is one of those things.

Time … time and space … time and space and stillness … these are the tools God uses to build a patient endurance within us. One of the most repeated counsels given in Scripture is the simple admonition to “Wait upon the Lord.†But we will never even see this as a good thing until we enter a time-full life. In one memorable passage Thomas Kelly says, “I find that God never leads us into an intolerable scramble of panting feverishness.†May you … may I … enter that stillness of soul which alone can cultivate a time-full life.

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