In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus paints an inspiring vision for our relationships with others. On the dashboard of human life, the quality of our relationships is one of three gauges we are to watch. James Bryan Smith says that our interactions with humans are the frontline of the spiritual life. They are where everything about our walk with God gets fleshed out. Thus we are exploring four ten-minute practices which can help us experience growth and transformation in our human relationships.
For the next three days we focus on a practice called slowing. Slowing is necessary because its opposite—hurry—is one of the primary enemies of rich and deep relationships.
Hurry Sickness
According to author John Ortberg, one of the greatest diseases of our time is “hurry sickness.” Here are the symptoms:[i]
- Constantly speeding up daily activities – Because we are haunted by the fear that there’s not enough time to get everything done, we read faster, talk faster, drive faster, work faster, etc. Despite our speed, however, we still do not get everything done.
- Multi-tasking – Even while in the car we find ourselves, driving, drinking, eating, applying make-up or shaving, talking on the phone, and checking emails (at stop lights, of course). While we watch television we do homework and answer the phone. We are too busy to simply do one activity at a time.
- Clutter – We have multiple to-do lists, have stacks of unread magazines, buy gadgets to help us get more done (and then don’t use them), and have unfinished projects all over the place. We simply don’t have the time to straighten up any aspect of our life.
- Superficiality – We do not have the time to develop deep character or deep relationships so we settle for a thin veneer of superficiality in all areas of life.
- An inability to love – Ortberg writes, “The most serious sign of hurry sickness is a diminished capacity to love. Love and hurry are fundamentally incompatible. Love always takes time, and time is one thing hurried people don’t have.”[ii]
- Sunset Fatigue – When we come home at the day’s end, we are too tired and too drained to attend to the people or the projects most in need of our energy. One of the things that most hinders our ability to lean into Jesus’ vision for the people in our life is our hurry. We simply don’t have time for people. We are too busy to invest in human lives and nurture human relationships.
The last three symptoms are particularly important. All three have to do with our relationships with others. Hurry creates superficial relationships and keeps them from deepening. Hurry creates in us a diminished capacity to love. Hurry drains us so that we are unable to truly invest in relationships. If we wish to experience Jesus’ vision for human relationships, hurry must become one of our primary targets.
Take ten minutes today and score yourself (1-5) on each of Ortberg’s symptoms of hurry sickness (1 = no trace of this symptom in my life; 5 = this symptom is very present in my life). What’s your score? Are you surprised? Now, complete this sentence: Because of my hurry sickness, my relationships with others _____________________________________________.
[i] John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted (Zondervan, 1997), 84-88.
[ii] Ortberg, 87.
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