Slower is Stronger
We live in a culture that prizes productivity, efficiency, and convenience. Faster, better, easier – these are words that sell. Marketers use them in ads, and we gobble them up – spending freely to save a minute here, avoid a hassle there. Let’s get it done, and then let’s sit back and relax!
In some ways, this “American Spirit” is a good thing. It has birthed breakthroughs in science, medicine, and engineering that were inconceivable in generations past. Technology is advancing rapidly and assisting us in new and incredible ways. Just think – the modern smartphone didn’t exist until 2007! Today, it’d be difficult to find an adult without one. The quest for faster, better, and easier has borne helpful fruit that we all enjoy daily, driving these cultural values way down deep in our souls.
As a Pastor, this worries me greatly. While productivity and efficiency have their place, in a very real way, they can be incredibly dangerous when it comes to our spiritual lives. Hasty calendars can destroy real communion with God; hurried hearts rarely are able to simmer in the Word or in prayer. With all it’s value for our society, the “American Spirit” can reduce the habits of grace to nothing more than a checklist to get done in the fastest way possible. Church, prayer, and time in the Word can be corrupted of their true value for our hearts.
Here are three quick diagnostic questions to help you consider your own heart on this:
- On Sundays, do you hustle out early, grab your kids, and scramble to the car to beat the traffic and get to lunch before the masses? Or do you linger as you leave, engage in conversation, seek to deepen friendships, and knit yourself into the relationships of the body?
- In the morning, do you prefer quick, bite-sized devotionals that give you a verse or two and a wise, practical thought to ponder concerning God and your life? Or do you open your Bible, read with concentration, engage with questions you have, prayerfully seek to understand and apply it?
- Does prayer happen in your life in any regular way – daily, concentrated, focused prayer? Or is it mostly rhythmic habits – before meals, before bed, quickly here and there – without any real direction unless you happen to be walking through a crisis?
If you’re like me, and your answers are less desirable than you’d like, let me offer to you three tools today to help reset your values from “faster, better, easier” to “slower, steadier, harder” when it comes to my spiritual life…
1. Let the Word Reset Your Heart
The only way to resist the influences of the culture around us is to be strengthened by better values from the Word of God. The Bible has much to say about the rich value of slowly simmering in the scriptures. Reading and remembering these passages can be a great help in resetting your heart values to the tune of scripture when it comes to your spiritual life!
“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked… but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.” Psalm 1:1-3, ESV
“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” Joshua 1:8, ESV
“With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” Psalm 119:10-11, ESV
“…[Jesus] has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.” 2 Peter 1:4, ESV
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” Colossians 3:16, ESV
2. Set Aside Time for Knitting
Again and again in his letters, Paul uses a strange verb to describe how we are to be connected together with the local church – knit (Eph 4:16, Col 2:2, Col 2:19). It’s a strange word to describe your connection with the church, but I think a very helpful one to illustrate what can be wrong in our spiritual lives sometimes. Knitting speaks of patience, care, and strong interconnectedness. There is nothing casual about a knitted sweater – it comes together knot by knot, slowly and steadily, until it has strength to endure for the long haul.
This is what your connection to the local church should feel like! Slow to develop perhaps, but knot by knot, connecting deeply to the body – strengthening it as you grow with it together. So, prioritize knitting into the body in your family calendar! Set aside time for it. Go to church early – and go meet some people. Stay late and meet some more. Learn names, and remember them! Share prayer requests, and pray together in the parking lot. Go to your small group. Really show up with your whole heart. Show up early there and stay late as well – make your leaders kick you out (sorry, leaders!). Knit in and enjoy the body for what it is meant to be – strength as we follow Jesus.
3. Make Prayer Cards
Nothing has been more transformative in my own life for cultivating a prayerful spirit than my stack of “prayer cards.” It’s a simple concept that I learned from Paul Miller’s great book A Praying Life. Grab some index cards, set aside one for each family member, one for your church, one for your small group, etc – write down prayer requests on each, and then pray for them, again and again, until God answers. Then scratch it out.
Something about having the prayer list written down is helpful. Something about leaving it in my cup holder in my car provokes action for me. Something about striking through a request long prayed for and finally answered builds faith and fosters endurance in prayers. It might not be the perfect solution for you, but it has been incredibly helpful for fostering some good simmering in prayerfulness for me.
In all of this, remember that the habits of grace are nothing more than means for spending time with Jesus. He is our great treasure – the treasure in the field for which we have sold everything to possess. Let us treasure him rightly as treasures are worthy to be treasured – by marveling, beholding, and enjoying them. Slow down a little in your soul. I think you will find as I have that slower is stronger.