In his book, An Unhurried Life, Alan Fadling wrote, “Greatness of soul requires an unhurried life.”

An unhurried life. A contemplative life. A reflective life. Call it what you want. When you practice slowing down and looking for God in the moment, what you eventually have is a fuller life. A flourishing life. A thriving life. It’s a life that sees, thinks, and feels far deeper than what a busy, hurried life can offer. The filter of stress and anxiety are replaced with serenity and peace.

That’s because an unhurried life is built upon letting go. Knowing God completely and competently cares for us, we can abandon all outcomes to him. It’s not laziness. We still prepare. We still show up. We still work hard. But we don’t trust in those things. We trust God. We trust he will use what we bring if he wants. But ultimately, we know that outcomes are his purview and not ours.

So what drives us to hurry? What is the internal pressure we carry that compels us to move through life so quickly? Why do we need to get one more thing accomplished? Why do we need to squeeze one more activity into an already bursting schedule? Why do we think our scurrying pace will make some great difference? One thing is for sure, Jesus didn’t have this compulsion. He lived at a different speed, the speed of love.

Theologian Kosuke Koyama taps into this reality when he writes, “Love has its speed. It is a spiritual speed. It is a different kind of speed from the technological speed to which we are accustomed. It goes on in the depth of our life, whether we notice or not, at three miles an hour. It is the speed we walk and therefore the speed the love of God walks.”

So, what’s the rush?