Simplicity Unedited

Introduction

There is a very common kind of interaction that I am sure you are familiar with. In fact, you’ve probably had this interaction this morning already.

Someone says, “Hi, how are you?” and you reply “I’m good how are you?” and they say, “I’m good,” but then, often, there’s a little addendum to that “good.” You might say, “I’m good, just busy.”

Busy.

It seems like we have given that word some inherent nobility, to where we even qualify greeting other people with the caveat that although we’re good, we’re “so busy.” Busyness has become an end unto itself - when you hear that word from someone, or when you say it yourself, you automatically assume that busy = good. You don’t have to qualify by saying that you are busy doing good things, we consider it inherently good and noble to be busy.

If you don’t agree with me, think about if we answered “how are you” differently. What if instead of saying “I’m good, just busy,” we said, “I’m good. I’m so rested. Genuinely, I feel refreshed and energized, not really exhausted or stressed.” You’d probably be like, “something is wrong with that person.” Don’t you know that you’re supposed to be stressed and busy like the rest of us?? Implicitly, you might even think that person is lazy or less-than simply because they aren’t busy.

But, many of you couldn’t respond that way because you aren’t that way. You are busy, you are stressed, and you can’t remember the last time you weren’t. At this point you might not even have a reason, it’s just the way you are. Even if you don’t actually have a lot going on, you’re still addicted to the feeling of busyness, and the tension in your mind is still so heightened that you feel busy and scattered if you have no reason to be. Or maybe you create things to be stressed about because you don’t know how to not feel that way, you’re hooked on it.

And it is eroding you, your relationships, and even your relationship with God.

I’d actually suggest that we have been using the wrong language. We say “busy” to describe this feeling, but that’s not really accurate.

“Busyness” on its own is not bad. In fact, it can be good, very good. From the beginning, Adam and Eve were given work to do in the garden of Eden. On some level, they were busy. Jesus himself had a pretty packed schedule. He was busy. But he did not sin. And he did not appear to be plagued by this stressed, chaotic, frantic way of life that characterizes what we sometimes mean when we say “busy.”

We may use the word busy but a better word for what we’re describing is probably hurry.

Hurry denotes a different meaning than busy. Busy means we have a lot to do, a lot on our schedule. A full life, which ebbs and flows as our life seasons change. But it is not inherently negative nor is it wrong. In fact, it is good and godly to have a busy life.

Hurry is something completely different. Hurry denotes being overwhelmed, overcommitted, stressed. Everything feels like an emergency, whether it is or isn’t. Your life is marked by stress, anxiety, chaos.

And since we have not differentiated between busy and hurry we try to medicate hurry by becoming less busy. We think that removing things from our calendar, clearing our schedules, sitting on our couch staring at a wall, whatever, will fix what is wrong. After all, if the problem is that we have a lot of things to do then we should just do less things, right?

Take a vacation! Take a week off, a day off, reduce your responsibilities, say “no” to more things.

The problem is that while that may “fix” busyness, it doesn’t fix hurry. Hurry sticks around. In fact, a hurried person will take a break and come back feeling worn just as thin, or even worse, than they did when the left.

Quick stats: 41% of Americans experience burnout after taking time off. 34% of Americans say it occurs as soon as they get back from their time off, and 50% say it occurs within one week of getting back to work.

Busy is an external condition, hurry is an internal condition of the soul.

Busy is an external condition that can be mitigated by decreasing activity, rearranging schedules, reprioritizing and developing healthy, sustainable schedules and rhythms.

Hurry is an internal condition of the soul that colors everything you experience with a veneer of stress, anxiety, exhaustion and overwhelm which cannot be fixed by taking time off or rearranging your schedule.

“Hurry is not just a disordered schedule. Hurry is a disordered heart.” John Ortberg

Dr. Michael Zigarelli

Vicious Cycle of Busyness

Christians are assimilating to a culture of busyness, hurry, and overload, which leads to

God becoming more marginalized in their lives, which leads to

a deteriorating relationship with God and others, which leads to

becoming even more vulnerable to adopting secular assumptions about how to live, which leads to

more conformity to a culture of busyness, hurry, and overload. And then the cycle begins again.

Dallas Willard doubles down on this…

“Hurry is the great enemy of souls in our day. Being busy is mostly a condition of our outer world; it is having many things to do. Being hurried is a problem of the soul. It’s being so preoccupied with myself and what myself has to do that I am no longer able to be fully present with God and fully present with you. There is no way a soul can thrive when it is hurried.” - Dallas Willard

Throughout our “Living the Good Life” series we’ve returned to the idea that living in a way consistent with how God has made us is not just obedient to him, but it is good for us. Living the good life means living an abundant life in Christ. Up to this point we’ve talked about many ways to reorient our lives toward the good life often by incorporating spiritual disciplines in order aid us in growing to be more like Jesus.

Hurry does not make us more like Jesus. Hurry does not point us to an abundant life in Christ. Hurry is not a part of the good life.

Hurry is not just not helpful…

Hurry is harmful.

Hurry is harmful to us, harmful to our relationships with others, and harmful to our relationship with God. Not a single aspect of our life is left unscathed from hurry.

Living the good life means living unhurried.

Living the good life means living simply.

You might wonder why we say “simply” instead of “slowly.” Slow may seem to be the opposite of hurry, and while that may be true at times, “just slow down,” is not always a possibility for us.

Parents with young kids, entrepreneurs, college students, so many are at stages of life where it is completely unhelpful for someone to pretentiously say, “well if you just slowed down then you might be a little less hurried.” “Oh great, when my kids are hungry for dinner I’ll just tell them ‘sorry, Mom needs to slow down.’”

Slowing down is not necessarily the antidote to hurry. Simplicity is. A heart set on life being simple can be busy, but not hurried.

In Luke 10, we see a very familiar story that gives us an example of “busyness” becoming “hurriedness,” because of a disordered heart. This story is captivating and relatable because we can see ourselves so clearly in it, but it is also informative for us because we can see firsthand how Jesus responds to hurry in the life of one of his faithful followers.

Luke 10:38–42 CSB

While they were traveling, he entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who also sat at the Lord’s feet and was listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks, and she came up and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? So tell her to give me a hand.” The Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has made the right choice, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Exegesis

I. Hurry is harmful to our relationship with ourselves. (38-39)

It appears that Jesus knew Mary and Martha previously, before this encounter. This is the same Mary and Martha who have a brother, Lazarus, who Jesus raises from the dead according to John 11. According to that passage all three siblings lived in the village of Bethany, about two miles east of Jerusalem.

John 11:5 “Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus.”

Jesus comes to have a close relationship with these three siblings. He knew them, they knew him, and they loved each other.

But, we aren’t sure how well they knew each other at this specific point. Jesus had some notoriety at this point, so it may be that Martha is aware he is coming through town and jumps at the chance to invite him to dinner.

It’s interesting that Martha is the one who invites Jesus to come in, and that Scripture says it was her house. We don’t know all of the details of this story, but it would have been a bit unusual for a woman in that time period to own a home, so she may have been a widow, or somehow wealthy.

At some point during the meal preparations, Jesus begins teaching, and Mary sits at his feet to listen. The phrasing here implies that perhaps that Jesus did already know Mary and Martha, since it says that Mary “also sat at the Lord’s feet” as if it were a regular occurrence.

When you “sat at someone’s feet” in this time period it was an expression which meant that you learned from them, you were their student. Yes, they may have literally sat at their teacher’s feet, but it implies more than just where they sat. It implies that they are committed to learning from them, being their pupil, even their disciple.

So Mary adopts this posture of disciple while Martha is running around presumably trying to get dinner ready, maybe find room for everyone to sleep, and everything else that you have to do when you have surprise guests.

Example of mom, wife, someone else getting loud. Sighs, pots banging, you’ve got to figure out what you did or are doing wrong.

This may be what Martha begins to do. She begins fuming inside. She’s dashing around, taking care of everything, doing everything for everyone else and Mary is just sitting there. Of course, she’d love to just sit but there are things that need to be done.

Her outburst doesn’t come out of nowhere. She was “distracted by her many tasks,” “worried and upset,” and finally decides that she’s had enough. She’s going to get Jesus, the Son of God himself to tell off her sister.

It’s tempting for us to pit Mary against Martha, Mary is the one who is contemplative, doing the “right” thing, and Martha is the anxious, busy one doing a bunch of stuff that doesn’t matter.

But that isn’t fair. Martha’s work matters as well. She is trying to care for her guests who include Jesus himself. This stuff has to get done! She has noble intentions and she isn’t doing anything wrong.

But, the way she responds, the fact that she gets so frustrated, shows us something that is going on in her heart. Her heart is disordered. It’s hurried.

Jesus tells her this in verse 41 - he says, “you are worried and upset about many things.” Scripture doesn’t make it clear whether Jesus is referring to the “many things” that go into making sure her guests are comfortable, or more generally, just “many things.” But, from what we know of Martha and her pragmatic, get things done, matter-of-fact attitude, it seems as if Jesus may be just be referring to the orientation of Martha’s heart.

Martha is worried and upset about many things, and it is harming her.

Do you see yourself here?

A hurried, disordered heart impacts your relationship with others, and it impacts your relationship with God, and we’ll talk about both of those in a minute.

But first let’s just sit with the reality for a second that…

Hurry harms you.

It doesn’t feel good! You wouldn’t wake up in the morning, stretch, and say well, guess I’m gonna be on edge today! I feel bad for the first person that mildly inconveniences me! Like, you wouldn’t choose to feel this way, would you?

Again, hurry does not necessarily equal busy. It can, but it doesn’t have to. You can be busy without being hurried, and you can definitely be hurried without being busy. You can have a lot of things going on, but that does not necessarily mean you need to be “hurried.”

Hurry is an orientation of your heart not a reflection of your circumstances.

So what does hurry look like in contrast to busy?

Martha’s heart - she did not have to snap. She was frustrated, stressed, and hurried. She was worried and upset about many things.

It may be difficult to comprehensively define whether your heart is oriented toward hurry - but one key symptom is how you react to stressful, frustrating situations.

Here’s a simple, diagnostic question: Are you a thermometer or a thermostat?

Do you set the temperature in the room or rise to the temperature in the room?

Do you have any ability to bring a healthy sense of calm into a situation, or are you at the mercy of whatever is happening that moment?

You know yourself, and if you are self-aware enough, you know how you react in stressful, frustrating situations.

Your default may be to blame the situation, or the people involved, like Martha. “Why isn’t my sister helping me?”

But here is a very important truth: your situation does not have the power to dictate how you react unless you give it that power.

When you react in a certain way you may think or say, “well, it’s because of my situation, my situation is stressful! It’s completely understandable that I would respond this way!”

And, it is! If we look at Martha’s situation, she’s running around trying to take care of everyone and they are just sitting listening to Jesus talk. That’s frustrating, that’s stressful, and it is understandable that she would react with frustration!

But simply because it is understandable does not make it right.

Scripture does not make allowances for our circumstances to allow us to sin.

Philippians 4:11–13 “I don’t say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself. I know how to make do with little, and I know how to make do with a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content—whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need. I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me.”

There isn’t a footnote on the passage in Galatians 5 talking about the fruits of the Spirit that says “unless the situation is really frustrating, then all bets are off.”

Galatians 5:22–23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

This is just one symptom of what it looks like to live a hurried life, and how that hurried life can impact us on a day to day basis.

This is actually so pervasive that in the 1970s, Dr. Meyer Friedman, along with his colleague Dr. R.H. Rosenman, coined a term called “Hurry Sickness.”

They defined it as “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.”

What’s interesting is that Friedman and Rosenman were cardiologists, and they studied how hurry sickness and these types of behaviors were related to health issues, specifically cardiovascular issues.

So while hurry sickness is harmful mentally and emotionally, it might also be literally physically harming you as well.

They developed some symptoms of hurry sickness, and those symptoms have been picked up, expanded and applied specifically to faith by some folks like John Mark Comer. I got this specific idea for a checklist from a church in Maryland called Mosaic Christian Church, and repurposed it for us. Don’t know anything about Mosaic, hope they’re doing well, hope you’re having a good Sunday service this morning.

dontgo.be/hurrysickness

Hurry Sickness

Irritability. You get mad, frustrated, or annoyed too easily.

Hypersensitivity. A minor circumstance will affect your feelings in a disproportionate way.

Restlessness. Your mind and body are constantly in motion. Rest isn’t restful.

Workaholism or non-stop activity. You prioritize accomplishment and accumulation.

Emotional numbness. You don’t have the capacity to feel anyone’s pain - including your own.

Out of order priorities. You’re reactive to the urgent, instead of proactive to the important.

Lack of care for your body. You don’t meet your own basic physical needs.

Escapist behaviors. You avoid life-giving activities by turning to distract that numb you.

Slippage of Spiritual Disciplines. Bible study, prayer, worship, giving, serving, etc. become the first to go instead of your go-to.

Isolation. You feel disconnected from God, others, and your own soul. 

I want to be clear that every human being will experience one or more of these at some point. Just like it’s tempting to feel a pain in your arm and be like, “that’s it, I’m done! WebMD told me I’m dying!” just because you have experienced something on this list doesn’t mean that you necessarily have a heart that is oriented toward hurry.

But, and this is where your own self-awareness and the Holy Spirit come into play. If you look at this list and you would say that a number of these characterize your life in a consistent way, beyond some one-offs, then it is very possible that you are experiencing the symptoms of a disordered heart.

You are worried and upset about many things.

A hurried heart is miserable to live with.

II. Hurry harms others (40).

Martha doesn’t go directly to Mary, she instead goes to Jesus, expecting him to rebuke Martha for her, but Mary is clearly the target of Martha’s frustration

You have to wonder if this is consistent theme in their relationship, it’s pretty safe to assume that this is not the first time that Martha has been frustrated with Mary about something similar

It’s kind of crazy how hurry causes us to lash out at those closest to us.

We blame them

We blame them for how we feel whether or not there’s any validity to that accusation or not.

Martha blames Mary for this situation at least in part because she thinks that if Mary helped her it wouldn’t be as bad.

We ignore their wants/needs

Martha didn’t consider that Mary was enjoying sitting at Jesus’ feet, learning from him.

She didn’t consider that maybe Mary really needed to hear what Jesus was saying

We resent others

It doesn’t appear that Martha is here yet, but hurry causes us to move toward resentment - where the fact that someone close to you is enjoying something actually makes you mad

In other words, resenting someone means that you can’t stand to see them happy

Hurry dehumanizes others

We recognize, normally, that human beings are complicated, multidimensional beings with thoughts, feelings, wants and needs.

A well-ordered heart engages with other people on that level - we are able to empathize with each other as human beings knowing that we all share this experience of being a human being

A disordered, hurried heart throws out this out. We dehumanize people by simply seeing them as a means to get what we want or need, or an annoyance if they get in our way. Their “humanness” is replaced by utility - what they can or can’t do for us.

Hurry harms us, yes, but…

Hurry harms others.

You may believe the lie that your hurriedness only impacts you, your mental, emotional, spiritual and even physical health. It does do that, but it also impacts those closest to you.

We’ve all been around stressed people. People have been around us when we are stressed.

It isn’t fun, is it? It’s kind of like watching a jack in the box get wound up. You don’t know when it’s gonna pop but you know that it’s going to, and so you just kind of sit there and flinch, waiting for the explosion.

It’s very possible that Mary was so transfixed by Jesus that she didn’t even notice Martha, but it’s probably more likely that she saw Martha out of the corner of her eye, darting back and forth, and while she was sitting and learning from Jesus, she also knew it was just a matter of time before Martha erupted.

Do you see yourself here?

When was the last time that you considered how your hurry might be impacting those around you? Has your hurried heart blinded you to the needs and wants of those around you? Has it blinded you to their humanity? Are you so wrapped up in the tyranny of urgency that you have lost the ability to be empathetic to those around you?

Do you see the room as full of mirrors or full of windows?

In a room full of mirrors, everything reflects back to you. Everyone’s actions and words you take personally, whether they have anything to do with you or not. You see them only in the light of what they can or can’t do for you, how they can or can’t help you.

In a room full of windows, you are able to look through your situation to see what God is doing. It doesn’t reflect back on you, so you can truly hear other people without taking everything personally. Even criticism and advice can be a positive thing as you look through it to see how God could use it to grow you. People aren’t frustrations to you, instead you wonder and marvel at what God is doing in their life.

Mary and Martha as an example

I have tried to be charitable to Martha, because I really do think that it’s important to realize that she was not “wrong” from a very high level view.

In that day and age, it would have been Mary’s job to help prepare the home for guests. It was normative that Martha would have expected her to help out!

Within a home, there are separate male and female spaces. Mary obviously belongs to the kitchen with Martha. To be sitting at the feet of Jesus is to take on the posture of a disciple, a role typically reserved for male students at that time (10:39). From Martha’s standpoint, Mary is shirking her female responsibilities and transgressing the boundaries of social space for her gender. Mary breaks convention to sit at the feet of Jesus and Martha follows convention to offer hospitality to Jesus.

Chen, Diane G.. Luke : A New Covenant Commentary, Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liberty/detail.action?docID=5050868.

Here’s what happens: Martha sees Mary sitting with Jesus and gets annoyed and frustrated that Mary isn’t doing what she’s supposed to do, help Martha, which is understandable to any one of us. She sees Mary’s actions reflecting back on herself, how they impact her.

But what if Martha had instead looked through that situation to what God was doing?

Here we see Jesus welcoming both men and women to learn at his feet, breaking down the ungodly cultural divisions between men and women that existed at the time. Of course we know that there biblical distinctions between men and women, but this culture had devolved into ungodly misogyny and discrimination that did not honor women as image-bearers of God.

Instead of curiosity giving way to wonder and awe at what God was doing, Martha instead gets annoyed.

Hurry harms us, but it never only harms us. When we live a disordered, hurried life, we delude ourselves into thinking that we are the only ones who pay the price. Our spouses, our kids, friends, co-workers, they all pay part of the price for our disordered heart.

III. Hurry is harmful to our relationship with God (41-42)

When Martha complains to Jesus about Mary, she is expecting him to take her side. Obviously Mary should jump up and help Martha!

But Jesus’ reply is pretty shocking - instead of giving a parental “Mary, go help your sister,” he instead gives a gentle rebuke to Martha.

And it is gentle.

Jesus using Martha’s name twice is emblematic of emotion on his part, but not anger or disappointment, but rather compassion.

Jesus knows that Martha is not doing anything wrong - she is trying to use her gifts and talents to serve the Lord in the best way she knows how, but she has taken that good desire and gone off track because a disordered, anxious heart.

Even in Jesus’ compassion, he uses strong words for “worried,” and “upset,” with carry with them the idea that Martha has moved out of a healthy desire to use her gifts and talents to a place where she is embracing worldly anxiety and worry.

Jesus’ firmest rebuke is that while Martha is worried and upset about many things (both related to this situation and not), only one thing is necessary.

Jesus is not saying, you’re preparing a five course meal and I would be good with one course - though that is something to consider

The “one thing” that is necessary is what Mary is doing - being with Jesus.

Martha has allowed her disordered, hurried heart to distract her from what is most important among many important things - being with Jesus.

Example of Emily coming home from a trip, driving a long way in the rain and me having the great idea to make Cajun food for her.

I was so focused on serving my wife I forgot to love my wife.

My wife would have preferred come home to a simple meal, cooked with love, and for us to actually be able to sit in our home together and eat, than to come home to me stressed out and toxic air in our home.

Hurry harms us, it harms those around us, but it also harms our relationship with God.

Hurry distracts us from Jesus as it distracted Martha from Jesus. That word for “distract” means to be “dragged away.” Martha doesn’t want to be pulled away from Jesus’ teaching but she has so many worries and tasks that she is pulled away from Jesus.

Do you see yourself here?

A hurried heart can harm your relationship with God in two ways:

You spend no time with him because you don’t have the capacity - you don’t have the “time” and if and when you do you’re worn so thin that you don’t feel like you can do anything that requires a modicum of effort.

You really do want to spend time with him, but your disordered heart is so wrapped up in doing things for God that you don’t know how to simplify your relationship with God enough to just be with him.

It’s interesting and revealing to ask people about their relationship with God.

Too often, that relationship is framed within activity. “I mean, I go to church, I try to read my Bible, I pray, etc.”

Imagine describing any other relationship that way. If you’re married and someone asks you about your spouse - “Well, we were married on this date, we live at this address, we eat dinner together many nights of the week, we file our taxes jointly…”

Is that really describing a relationship?

Or think about it this way - if you are always talking about the relationship do you really even know if you like/love the person?

Christians do a bad job of this, we esteem marriage really highly, as we should, so we don’t casually date, we date with marriage in view. But sometimes that means that we skip over any sort of relational development just to get to the rings.

If every conversation you have is just about the relationship itself, and you don’t have anything to talk about if you aren’t talking about your relationship, you aren’t actually interested in and captivated by the other person in the relationship, is that really a relationship you should be in?

I know that I’ve pressed pretty hard on hurry and a disordered heart, and you may be wondering, okay, where’s the hope?

Application

Well, I’ve asked you a few times, do you see yourself here?

If you do, or if you have, or if you may at some point, there is hope here for you.

What did Jesus want from Martha? More than her performance, more than a five course meal, a well-made bed, a spotless home?

He wanted her to be with him.

And the only way that Martha was going to be able to calm her hurried, disordered heart enough for her to be with Jesus was for her to embrace simplicity.

Some interpretations of this story aren’t exactly helpful because they pit Mary and Martha against each other, as if contemplative Mary sitting winsomely at Jesus’ feet has it all figured out, while type-A, driven, tenacious Martha is completely in the wrong.

But here is the hope: whether you are drawn to contemplation or action, if you are type-A or type-B, naturally given to sitting at Jesus’ feet or if you need those feet to trip you sometimes so you actually sit down, there is room in the kingdom of heaven for you.

Both Mary and Martha are blessed. Both of them have gifts and talents that can be used by the Lord. Jesus loved both of them and wanted each of them to experience abundant life in him, and he wants the same for you as well.

So if you’ve ever been accused of being a “Martha,” hear this: God made you, gifted you, and loves you. You are not a second-class Christian because you like getting things done while the real Christians sit up in the clouds thinking contemplative thoughts.

But, just like more contemplative Christians must be reminded that Jesus wants them to actually do good things, accomplish good works for the kingdom, you need to be reminded that ultimately, the best, most important thing is to be with Jesus. Our gifts, talents, preferences all must be submitted to discipleship and not impede discipleship.

Listen to how Jesus himself describes being with him:

Matthew 11:28–30 ““Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.””

Does walking with Jesus feel restful? Does his yoke seem easy and light? Or have you taken the yoke Jesus gave you and loaded it down to where it is burdensome and heavy?

Are you anxious and worried about many things?

Years ago, when pastor John Ortberg took a job at a megachurch he asked his friend and mentor, Dallas Willard, what he need to do to be spiritually healthy.

Dallas Willard paused for a while and then replied: “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”

John does that little spiritual hum (you know the one) and writes that down, then says, “Okay, that’s great, what else?”

Dallas Willard says, “There is nothing else. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”

This phrase has been popularized very recently, but as a blueprint to spiritual health, it seems lacking. What about everything else, including some of the spiritual disciplines we’ve talked about so far in this series? There’s a lot that goes into being a Christian, it can’t be as simple as just removing hurry from our lives?

“Hurry is not of the devil; hurry is the devil.” Carl Jung

Hurry makes us miserable, it makes those around us miserable, and it makes our interactions with God transactional instead of relational.

Hurry infects every part of our lives, even the spiritual disciplines that we’ve talked about so far in this series.

Let’s take the phrase, “being with Jesus,” for example. When I say that, what comes to your mind?

Probably reading your Bible and praying, right? Good things!

But when a hurried person will incorporate these disciplines as just another thing to do, another task.

You may have the discipline of a quiet time, where you read Scripture, pray, maybe journal or something like that, which is a great thing.

But, is your quiet time just another thing on your list so you can say, okay, good, done, and then move on to the next thing.

Example of giving your spouse 30 minutes a day to talk, and you get to set the rules for the conversation.

Hurry is harmful. Harmful to every part of our life.

Contrast the hurried life with what Paul writes in…

1 Thessalonians 4:10–12 “But we encourage you, brothers and sisters, to do this even more, to seek to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, so that you may behave properly in the presence of outsiders and not be dependent on anyone.”

Lead a quiet life, simple, restful, peaceful, The Message paraphrase says “stay calm, mind your own business, do your own job.”

Does this sound good to you?

I can’t give you the three, four, five step plan to eliminating hurry from your life, opening up your desire and ability to spend time with Jesus. That’s not how these things work. But, I can encourage you to embrace a discipline that is historical for Christians, and one that is rooted deeply in Scripture. One that combats hurry and moves us toward simplicity.

Technically, it’s two but they go together:

Silence & Solitude

Pascal said, probably tongue-in-cheek, that…

“I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they are unable to stay quietly in their own room.”

As a discipline that moves you toward simplicity, this discipline itself is simple to explain: you get alone, and you get quiet.

This is difficult, but why? Because there is so much noise everywhere all of the time.

So this means that you need to be in a place where people aren’t communicating with you, and you need to be in a place where you can quiet the noise that is all around you.

Sitting on the couch at home is probably not the best option, then, depending on your stage of life.

This practice involves you interrupting your normal rhythm of life and intentionally simplifying in order to create margin and space in your life.

Get alone, and get quiet, and yes, get rid of your phone. You cannot have your phone pinging in your pocket while you’re trying to do this.

External noise and distractions must be eliminated or at least significantly decreased in order for you to engage with this discipline.

Then, what do you do? I think sometimes people think of Silence and Solitude as like a Super Quiet Time, but that’s not really want it is. This discipline is not intended to replace spending time in God’s Word and prayer, but instead to complement that practice.

So, while Scripture may be a part of it, and prayer might be a part of it, you are in a passive posture, a posture of receiving from the Lord. You don’t have a plan for what you’re going to read or pray, you are simply being quiet and engaging with the Lord.

You make every effort to quiet your mind and body, and then you let your soul catch up.

Here’s how it looks for me:

I walk. I have my headphones in listening to ambient, instrumental music because without that I’m more distracted. I don’t wear my glasses so I can’t see very well into the distance. I turn my phone on airplane mode and am disciplined enough not to touch it if its in my bag or back pocket.

Then I start to walk.

You may think, in the quiet my thoughts are going to go crazy. They will, especially if you’re detoxing from a lot of noise and hurry. But here’s what I do:

I think, but I catch and release my thoughts.

I may still be worried and upset about many things, and they all may still flood my brain but instead of trying to hold onto all of them, or juggle them, I recognize that here, in the silence and solitude, I can feel the Lord’s nearness, and his willingness to take my burdened heart and make it light. So as I think these things, I release them back to him. Yes, I will have to deal with some of them at some point, but I do not have to be hurried. I do not have to frantic. I do not have to anxious.

I am with Jesus.

And you know what, nothing changes all at once. But through discipline, through practicing this, it becomes more natural for me to do the same thing even if I’m not walking down a trail somewhere with ambient music in my ears.

I have been in the midst of absolute chaos, and yet been able to breathe and release my hurry, my anxiety, to God. Then I deal with the situation but I am not hurried, I am not frantic, because I am with Jesus and he is with me.

Another way of putting this would be what the Peter says in 1 Peter 5:7 “casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you.”

Why is this discipline so important?

Silence and solitude are present in the life of Jesus. Over and over in the gospel accounts we see Jesus going off by himself, to pray, to rest, to be with his Father. Silence and solitude were an important part of Jesus’ life and as we look to his example, it should be important to us.

Silence and solitude put you in a posture of listening. A lot of our relationship with God is one-way. We rarely listen. Now, you may not hear God’s voice audibly, but he will speak to you in a variety of different ways consistent with his Word, the Bible. And, as this discipline becomes a part of your life, you will be better able to read Scripture and pray in a way is receptive to the Holy Spirit.

Silence and solitude force you into a state of non-productivity. It doesn’t feel productive in a traditional sense to go take time to be quiet and alone. It’s kind of a rebellious, subversive act that goes against a culture that is always telling you to work harder, be more, do more, get more. Silence and solitude remove you from that vicious cycle, and instead introduce you to the productive work of caring for your soul and giving space for God to speak. And you are reminded that you do “not live on bread alone but every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord,” and that he is the one who provides for you.

Silence and solitude eliminates noise from our lives, at least for a little bit. Noise distracts us, disorients us, disconnects us, and ultimately disfigures and discourages us because noise has discipled us. Rebel against noise. Challenge it. Refuse to submit to it anymore. Be a disciple of Jesus, not of the noise.

This discipline is not easy. Some of you may be thinking, this would be impossible for me. You don’t understand the demands on my life, I can’t take any time for silence and solitude. I’m sure that’s great for people with nothing going on.

Can I encourage you and challenge you? First, the way this discipline works in your life is not going to be the same way it works in mine. And it doesn’t have to be.

The principle is that you regularly take time away from responsibilities and noise to spend time intentionally simplifying your heart, mind and soul, creating margin in your life.

The challenge is: I have heard every excuse. I don’t have time, I have kids, I have responsibilities, I have school, I have work, on and on and on…

My response is, I don’t care. What do you want to do? Keep living how you’re living. How’s that going for you?

You will inconvenience yourself by this, you may even inconvenience other people, family and friends by simply being unavailable for a period of time. But your spouse, your family and your friends should be there to support you in the same way that you are there to support them! This is deeply good for you and good for your soul.

And, we aren’t talking about an inordinate amount of time. Listen, if your schedule is so packed that you can’t find, I don’t know, thirty minutes, thirty minutes a week to spend in silence and solitude, then you have a much bigger issue.

So, homework!

This week, I want you to find thirty minutes or an hour preferably, and just be still. Pray, recall Scripture, but be in a posture of listening and releasing all of your worries, casting all of your cares upon the Lord because he cares for you, instead of letting them fester in your soul. Then consider making that a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly practice.

Beyond this week, I would strongly encourage you to consider taking a personal, spiritual retreat sometime in the remainder of this year. This is a discipline that Emily and I have built into our marriage where one of us will go away for one or two nights just to read, pray, journal, be still, nap. If that seems like a waste of time to you, that’s your disordered heart speaking. It doesn’t have to be elaborate or expensive, just a quiet place for you to be alone and let God draw near to you, simplifying your life that you have made so complicated.

Conclusion