Let’s pretend for a minute that Jesus was living physically in the 21st century: 

The alarm on His phone goes off before the sun comes up, He wakes – although reluctantly – because He stayed up way too long watching sermons on YouTube and reading cool Instagram inspirations. He heads to the gym for a quick work out, showers there, and begins His day of ministry. He picks up His disciples and they grab fast food – uttering a quick prayer of thanks as they wolf down their meal while they drive. Jesus teaches and heals all day. The demand for Him is overwhelming. He is fully focused on His heavenly agenda items. As He is walking to lunch, a homeless man with a limp approaches Him, Jesus gives him a nod and keeps it moving because He has a scheduled meeting at 1:00 pm. He works until after dark, then rushes off to a dinner meeting at the home of an IRS agent. He then swings by and picks up his sister’s kids from youth group. He drops them off and His sister meets Him at the door in a big quandary, but He has no time to talk to her because He has a Zoom call at 9:30 pm. Jesus promises to get back to her on Saturday. On the way home, He sees a woman in a stranded vehicle on the side of the road, but again, doesn’t stop because He’s running late for a very important Zoom meeting. As He rushes into His home, His roommate asks Him a question, but Jesus says “hi” and promises to check in later. He logs on at 9:45 pm and shares some beautiful encouragement with the team. After the meeting, He circles back to His roommate, but he is already asleep. Jesus then falls into bed at 11:30 pm, only to do it all again tomorrow.

Is that how you picture the life of Jesus? The above scenario is the antithesis of how I imagine Jesus lived, but it is not far from how over-scheduled and frantically I live on many days.

How was his pace of life different? In the 1st century He would have been walking, not driving. This naturally has a simple slowness to it. He had countless hours of walking with his disciples which gave Him plenty of time to talk – to teach and to share. Jesus made time for people, saw the people He encountered and made them feel important with His attention. We also see numerous times in the gospels that He communed with God all the time. Sometimes He deliberately went away from town to pray but it was also a constant conscious decision to be with God – regardless of what He was doing. (“I and the Father are One.” John 10:30.) 

I am wondering how we can bring a 1st century slowness to our lives. If I am a follower of Jesus, if I am His apprentice, how can I live more like Him (other than giving up my car and wearing sandals)? Besides the obvious descriptors of loving and sinless, I would describe the life of Jesus as unhurried, fully present, meditative, and measured. He had time for connection with God and people. The Jesus of the Bible was not rushing around. 

I picture Jesus to be the opposite of hurry. I picture that He had time for people. His to-do list and his agenda was loving others.  I picture a piercing gaze that showed His love and care. I imagine that when He spoke with you, you felt like you were the only person in the world. I think His laser focus on a person warmed their heart and mind. I believe His essence said “I have time for you. You matter.”

We can’t live and love God or others well if we are too busy. There is little time for true relationships in our demanding, hectic lives. I know my typical day is sometimes far too busy for meaningful moments of connection with others or with God. I blow through my to-do list like it’s the key to the kingdom, but it is NOT the most important thing. 

Corrie ten Boom (Christian writer with an amazing story) once said, “If the devil can’t make you sin, he’ll make you busy.” There is so much truth to this!

Full disclosure, I just finished John Mark Comer’s book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. Many of my thoughts here are my take-aways from that book. I am a lo-o-o-o-ng way from mastering this but here are a few things I am trying.

1. Break the addiction to my phone. Only Jesus is my constant companion – I can separate from my phone for a few hours at a time! I don’t need to check my email or answer every text immediately. I also set a five-minute limit on my phone for Instagram and Facebook. We get a dopamine hit off the alert of the phone and it is truly addictive.     

2. Leave margins in my life. Don’t schedule every minute of every day. Keep boundaries around work and home life. When I am making plans, check the times before and after. For example, just because I have no plans on a given night doesn’t mean it’s my best yes if I have commitments the day before and after. Look at the weekly calendar as a whole. Leave space for the unexpected. 

3. Remember to Sabbath. Take a day of rest each week. If the God of the universe rested (Genesis 2:1-2), shouldn’t I? BTW, did God need rest or was that modeling always for us? Perhaps He took rest because He wanted to stop and enjoy what He had made. He didn’t rush off to the next task, He stopped and savored.

4. Spend time with Jesus. Slow down, take a breath and invite Him to be with me along the way. Ask Him to show up at the stop light, at the kitchen sink, on my breaks at work. Sit with Him without always asking for something. Just be with Him. Try setting your timer for three minutes and spend time with Jesus like two friends having coffee. (Don’t be that friend that does all the talking!)

5. Study Jesus. Read the gospels and notice how He lived. He did not live at the frenetic pace many of us live. Look at how He valued people. He wasn’t moving too quickly to truly see the people around Him. 

6. Practice mindfulness. Be in the moment – not on what comes next or on what was in the past (or on your phone). Relish the life you are living. Turn off your personal auto-pilot and notice who and what is around you…including the God who sees you.

Comer quotes John Ortberg from The Life You’ve Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People: 

“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.”

May we live this life to the full! May we take it slowly!

Image by Brian Merrill from Pixabay

ABOUT OUR BLOGGER

Bonnie Kotler and her husband Mitch have two daughters, three sons, seven grandchildren and three grand-puppies. She was a stay-at-home mom for many years before re-entering the workforce after receiving her M.S. in Counseling and Human Relations from Villanova University. She is a licensed professional counselor at The Peacemaker Center and her own private practice, True North Counseling. Bonnie has been on the Willowdale women’s ministry teaching team since 2012. Bible studies have played a key role in her walk as a believer, and in turn, she loves to help other women find their peace with God and grow in their faith. She enjoys writing Bible study materials, reading fiction, spending time with family and doing anything in the sunshine. Bonnie loves to laugh and considers laughter as the best medicine.  Psalm 126:2