When Slow Is Better Than Fast

When Slow Is Better Than Fast

As I was preparing for our youth football draft one year, I reminded myself of how important fast players are for a football team. The previous season, I had a great group of young men, but we only got one victory, because we didn’t have any speed.

We had size, but the size didn’t help us, because the faster kids beat our boys to the hole. What I have learned from a few victories and a whole lot of losses is that in youth sports, it is all about speed. And, as Raiders coach Al Davis says, “You can’t teach speed.”

We may not have the speed of those few special athletes in sports, but many of us live our lives way too fast.

Here is what we need to understand about speed in our everyday lives. “Things of speed,” as I once heard Bill Hybels say, “and things of the soul, move in opposite directions. They are at an inverse relationship to one another.”

In other words, you can’t cultivate the soul moving at Mach speed. God uses stillness to frame us and shape us. He uses nature to testify of his character. He uses stirring in the middle of the night to get us up to seek him in prayer. He whispers to our hearts his love for us.

What are you doing to cultivate the soul? The psalmist suggests being still: “Be still, and know that I am God! I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world” (Psalm 46:10). In a time-constrained world, let’s slow down so we can soak in the things of the soul.

Be still, and know that I am God! I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world.

Psalm 46:10