One of the big challenges in our world today is the pace at which life moves. In business, results are measured quarterly. In technology, things seem to change weekly or even daily. In journalism, the world changes from moment to moment. It’s as if we live with a constant sense of being left behind and needing to catch up. Perhaps that’s why psychologist Carl Jung said, “Hurry is not of the devil. It IS the devil.”
There are few things that can trip us up in our quest for God as much as the disease of frantic hurry. When you study the Scriptures, you discover that God works with an eternal view of time, and is not rushed or hurried by human events or agendas. Moses was prepared for eighty years before he began his ministry. Jesus was thirty before he began his. And it took thousands of years before the time was right for the incarnation to break into human affairs. Which is why, if we truly seek intimacy with God, we need to release our obsession with quick fixes and instant results. In spite of its promise, I have my doubts that a book that claims to teach deep meditation in a mere thirty days can really deliver.
It makes sense that dealing with God should take time. Even our human relationships require slow, focussed attention, and both quantity and quality of time. If it is true that God is always reaching out to us, then it is also true that we need to make time to respond effectively to God’s promptings. In human relationships, it is usually our quick reactions to one another that get us into trouble. In our divine relationship, it is our quick reactions that prevent us going deeper and finding the life we long for.
When God speaks, a true response requires reflection. God’s communications are almost always enigmatic, challenging and change-inducing. Jesus taught in parables so that people needed to think more carefully and take time to allow God’s word to emerge from the story and sink into their hearts. It is no different for us today. The first response God asks of us is to slow down and sit with God’s message. Then, we are invited to look inward and examine our hearts in the light of what God has communicated, allowing God’s wisdom to shift our perspectives and understandings and allow new insights into ourselves and the world to emerge.
But, it doesn’t stop there. Once we have taken the time to reflect, we are inevitably led into a deeper, more active engagement with God’s purposes. We will find that our response is not just one of thought or even of prayer. Ultimately, unless our response to God leads us into new behaviours, new attitudes and new ways of relating to one another, we have not truly responded at all. But, it takes time to know how to bring God’s wisdom into practical application in our lives, and so we must avoid the temptation to jump into quick solutions or easy actions.
A true, deep and slow response to God, then, implies that our acts of worship must not be rushed, filled with lots of words and actions, and overly busy. In a world of hectic, often thoughtless, activity, worship invites us to slow down, embrace silence and reflection, and make our choices carefully before we return to the routines of our lives. It may feel unfamiliar to enter worship in this way, but if we take God’s eternal perspective seriously, and if we really want to move into a deeper connection with God, ourselves and others, we will find that it is the silence and the slowness that meets the longings of our hearts.