Quick—eliminate Hurry! - The One Year Love Talk Devotional for Couples
Quick—Eliminate Hurry!
Be still in the presence of the LORD, and wait patiently for him to act.
Psalm 37:7
We read nearly everything John Ortberg writes. We went to graduate school with John and have long known him to be one of the most down-to-earth writers on heavenly issues you’ll ever find. In his book The Life You’ve Always Wanted, he has a chapter called “An Unhurried Life” in which he tells the story of getting some spiritual direction from a wise friend shortly after moving to Chicago.
“I described [to my friend] the pace at which things tend to move in my current setting,” John writes. He also told his friend about the fast clip of his family life and asked what he might need to do “to be spiritually healthy” in the midst of that flurry of activity.
After a quiet moment, his friend finally spoke: “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.” And that’s all he said.
“Okay, I’ve written that one down,” John told him. He was a little impatient. “That’s a good one. Now, what else is there?” John writes that he had a lot to do just then and he was talking to his friend long distance, so as he puts it, “I was anxious to cram as many units of spiritual wisdom into the least amount of time possible.”
His friend was quiet a long time before he spoke again.
“There is nothing else,” his wise friend said. “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”a
That’s it. His spiritual mentor could have given him a laundry list of things to do that would have aligned his spirit with the Almighty. But that’s all he suggested. There’s nothing else but to eliminate hurry from your life.
Brilliantly simple, don’t you think? Don’t hurry past that. Take it to heart. Take time to be still before the Lord, and ask him to show you what the two of you could ruthlessly eliminate this very day that would eliminate hurry from your life together.
You’re only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry. Don’t worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way.
—Walter Hagen
a John Ortberg, “Ruthlessly Eliminate Hurry,” Christianity Today, July 4, 2002, http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/currenttrendscolumns/leadershipweekly/cln20704.html.
The One Year Love Talk Devotional for Couples
By Dr. Les Parrott and Dr. Leslie Parrott
Tyndale
$7.99
