I'm in a hurry to get things done

I rush and rush until life's no fun

All I really gotta do is live and die, but

I'm in a hurry and don't know why - Alabama

How are you doing?

I’m good; just busy.

Why is that my typical response to inquiries about my well-being? Is it a desire to not be seen as lazy? Is it a badge of honor? Have I crammed my life so full with activities and events that I don’t have time for the most important aspects of what makes a good life? And if I am actually too busy, why did I make all the decisions to get to that state?

Unfortunately, I don’t believe I am alone in this. My response is often the response I get from others. Being “crazy busy” (the title of Kevin DeYoung’s book on the topic) or “always in a rush” is the general state of many. It’s what led me to do some reading on the issue. And that is how I found John Mark Comer’s book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.

This struggle is so prevalent and has such a de-forming impact on our lives as apprentices of Jesus, that I want to spend some time in these blog posts considering it. The sad reality is that our busyness is keeping us from living the Jesus way. Our packed schedules leave little time for sustained reading, reflection, and prayer. This weakens us. Thus, we are unprepared for the service, suffering, and sacrifice to which we are called.

This is not only an issue for Christians but everybody. Psychologists and mental health label it as a disease. They even have given it a name:  hurry sickness. Here are a few definitions that Comer provides:

A behavior pattern characterized by continual rushing and anxiousness.

A malaise in which a person feels chronically short of time, and so tends to perform every task faster and to get flustered when encountering any kind of delay.

A continuous struggle and unremitting attempt to accomplish or achieve more and more things or participate in more and more events in less and less time. (This one is by Meyer Friedman, the cardiologist who developed the hypothesis that Type A people who are chronically angry and in a hurry are more prone to heart attacks)

Ouch! Honestly ask yourself if any of that sounds like you.

We will be looking at particular symptoms in upcoming weeks but here are a few examples from Comer to get us started.

*Moving from one check-out line to another because it looks shorter/faster

*Counting the cars in front of you and either getting in the lane that has the least or is going the fastest

*Multi-tasking to the point of forgetting one of the tasks (PJ - multi-tasking is almost a discarded concept; instead, it is better to speak of switch tasking, which is actually quite inefficient)

The point in spending time evaluating our lives for hurry sickness is that we might provide opportunity for growth in grace and in relationship with our Triune God. It will hopefully allow us to conform more to the pattern of Jesus. Read the Gospels and see how often we are told that Jesus withdrew to spend time with the Father. And also consider that even at the height of His ministry, you never get the sense that Jesus is hurried, rushed, or frazzled. Saints, if we would be true disciples of Jesus, then we must not only think the way He thinks but also live the way He lives. And since hurry sickness keeps us from that, let us allow the Spirit to heal us from it.