Six Habits to Handle Hurry

How To Handle Hurry Sickness (Pt. 2)

Mark 6:30-31

It’s Thanksgiving Day & the aroma of roast turkey fills Charlie Brown’s house. Snoopy, outside, lying on top of his doghouse, smells that aroma, & he is thinking, “It’s Thanksgiving Day. Everybody eats turkey on Thanksgiving Day.” So he lies there, watching the back door, eagerly awaiting his Thanksgiving dinner.

Finally, the door opens & here comes Charlie Brown with a bowl of dog food, & he puts it on the ground. Snoopy gets off his house & stares at the dog food with a forlorn look on his face. And he thinks, “Just because I’m a dog, I have to eat dog food on Thanksgiving Day.” Then the next square shows him looking at the dog food more intently, & he is thinking, “It could be worse. I could be the turkey.”

Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful and to rest and be with our families. Resting is something that we are not to good at sometimes.

Mark 6:30-31 The apostles returned to Jesus from their ministry tour and told him all they had done and what they had taught. Then Jesus said, “Let’s get away from the crowds for a while and rest.” (NLT)

1. Practice slowing down.

If you’ve got hurry sickness, you’re absolutely going to hate this one. You’re going to scoff and balk and chaff at it when I tell you what to do. That’s a sure sign of hurried pace of life. This first one is a tough one for me sometimes. But I think it can be a help.

Did you know our city government practices slowing things down? Listen what they did to Noah. The Lord spoke to Noah and said, “Noah in six months I am going to make it rain until the whole world is covered with water and all the evil things are destroyed. But, I want to save a few good people and two of every living thing on the planet. So I want you to build an ark.”

Well, six months passed, the sky began to cloud up, and the rain began to fall in torrents. The Lord looked down and saw Nah sitting in his yard, weeping, and there was no ark. “Noah!” shouted the Lord, “Where is My ark?” “Lord please forgive me!” begged Noah. “I did my best but there were some problems --- big problems. First, I had to get a building permit for the ark’s construction, but Your plans did not meet their code. So, I had to hire an engineer to redo the plans, only to get into a long argument with him about whether to include a fire-sprinkler system.”

“My neighbors objected, claiming that I was violating zoning ordinances by building the ark in my front yard, because it was killing the dandelions --- so I had to get a variance from the city planning board. Then I had a big problem getting enough wood for the ark, because there was a ban on cutting trees to save the spotted owl. I tried to convince the environmentalists and the Fish and Game Commission that I needed the wood to save the owls, but they wouldn’t let me catch them, so NO OWLS.”

“Next I started gathering up the animals but got sued by an animal rights group that objected to my taking along only two of each kind; they wanted me to save them all. Then the Corps of Engineers wanted a map of the proposed flood plain. So I sent them a globe! The IRS has seized all my assets claiming that I am trying to leave the country, and I just got notice from the state that I owe some kind of usage tax. Really, I don’t think I can finish the ark in less than five years.”

With that, the sky cleared, the sun began to shine, and a rainbow arched across the sky. Noah looked up and smiled. “You mean You are not going to destroy the world?” he asked hopefully. “No,” said the Lord, “I am too late, the government already has.”

Practice slowing down while you’re driving. Did you know that the Bible says we are to “obey the laws of the land?” Don’t go over the speed limit. Do the opposite. Practice going one to three miles per hour under the speed limit. When you approach that stop light, deliberately don’t get in the lane with the smallest number of cars. Not only will you overcome hurry sickness, but the fringe benefit is a clean driving record and lower insurance premiums. Use the same concept at the grocery store. Choose a longer line, take a deep breath and notice the people around you. Try to strike up a conversation. Build a relationship. If someone has just a few items, invite them to go in front of you.

Apply this discipline to any area where you’re tempted to speed up. It’ll drive you nuts at first but it’ll also help you to “aggressively eliminate hurry from your life.” Choose to slow down.

2. Learn to say “No.”

We love volunteers around here because there are so few of them. I encourage service within the context of the church because neither the church nor the member can grow without it. Some of us, however, have a problem with over commitment. We have good intentions, but fail to think through what we’ve signed on for. You’ve got to count the cost of your commitments.

Ask yourself, “Is this responsibility or ministry or overtime going to keep me away from home yet another night of the week?” I’ve made a personal commitment to never be gone from home more than four nights a week. I will cut some of my evening activities to make it happen. If you’re going to do it you’ve got to learn to say, “No.”

In his medical practice, Dr. Richard Swenson sees a steady stream of hurting people coming into his office. He claims that a majority of them suffer from a chronic ailment which has reached epidemic levels in our country.

Do you know what it is? SARS, maybe? Or AIDS? The disease Dr. Swenson is concerned about is what he calls a lack of “MARGIN.” “Margin is the space that once existed between ourselves & our limits. It’s something held in reserve for contingencies or unanticipated situations.

“As a society, we’ve forgotten what margin is. In the push for progress, margin has been devoured. We’re overloaded.” Swenson describes the results of this kind of living this way: “… we feel distressed in ill-defined ways. We are besieged by anxiety, stress and fatigue. Our relationships suffer. We have unexplained aches and pains. The flood of daily events seems beyond our control.”

Does that sound familiar to anybody? How different does that sound from the words of Jesus: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. KJV John 10:10

Ask yourself if those early morning activities are going to cut into you quiet time with God. If you add one more thing to your calendar is it going to contribute to your rudeness and irritability? Learn to say “no” to many good things, so that you can focus on the best things. You must aggressively eliminate hurry from your life.

3. Consistently keep a Sabbath.

There’s a reason why God commanded: “Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days a week are set apart for your daily duties and regular work, but the seventh day is a day of rest dedicated to the LORD your God.” Exodus 20:8-10 (NLT)

He knew that we need it. We need time for physical renewal. We need time to reflect on and appreciate life. The Sabbath was intended to be a mindless ritual. Jesus said “The Sabbath was made to benefit people and not people to benefit the Sabbath.” Mark 2:27 (NLT) Make sure that you take one day a week off. It doesn’t matter what day you take, as long as you consistently maintain it.

So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new-moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. Colossians 2:16 (NLT)

A seminary professor said one time, “Those who break the Sabbath will be broken by it.”

4. De-clutter your life.

Rabbi Harold Kushner tells a story about a bright young man, who was a sophomore Stanford pre-med student To reward him for having done so well in school, his parents gave him a trip to the Far East for the summer vacation before the start of his junior year. While there he met a guru who said to him, "Don’t you see how you are poisoning your soul with this success oriented way of life? Your idea of happiness is to stay up all night studying for an exam so you can get a better grade than your best friend. Your idea of a good marriage is not to find the woman who will make you whole, but to win the girl that everyone else wants. That’s not how people are supposed to live. Give it up; come join us in an atmosphere where we all share and love each other." The young man had completed four years at a competitive high school to get into Stanford, plus two years of pre-med courses at the university. He was ripe for this sort of approach. He called his parents from Tokyo and told them he would not be coming home. He was dropping out of school to live in an ashram (a spiritual retreat).

"Six months later, his parents got a letter from him: Dear Mom and Dad, I know you weren’t happy with the decision I made last summer, but I want to tell you how happy it has made me. For the first time in my life, I am at peace. Here there is no competing, no hustling, no trying to get ahead of anyone else. Here we are all equal, and we all share. This way of life is so much in harmony with the inner essence of my soul that in only 6 months I’ve become the number 2 disciple in the ashram, and I think I can be number one by June.

You may never have considered this one as a pace of life issue, but it is. On the one hand the more stuff you have the more time goes into maintaining it. On the other hand, getting more stuff, the stuff that’s cluttering up our lives, is what’s sapping our time. We must simultaneously de-clutter, get rid of our unnecessary junk, and learn to be content with a few things.

1 Timothy 6:6-9 says Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. (NRSV)

Resist the urge to re-stuff. Find the freedom of de-cluttering.

5. Use recreation for re-creation.

Another way to say this is “use leisure time in life-giving ways.” Many times when we do get a break we engage in escapist activities rather than things that can renew us. For example, many folks watch hours of TV or go shopping when they really don’t need anything. Some folks eat when they’re not hungry. These are all escapist activities. They’re the least demanding ways to keep from being bored.

Try turning your recreation into re-creation. When you have time off do the things that bring new vitality to your mind, body and soul. It’s up the individual. For me, a good book does the trick. For you it might be gardening or hiking or playing a sport. Some folks just like to hang out with friends. Whatever energizes you, do it. Don’t simply anesthetize yourself with mindless activity. Finally:

6. Develop the discipline of solitude.

John Ortberg, in his book The Life You’ve Always Wanted, notes an experiment done with mice a few years ago. A researcher found that it takes a high dose of amphetamines to kill a mouse living in solitude. But a group of mice will start hopping around and hyping each other up so much that a dosage twenty times smaller will be lethal, so great is the effect of “the world” on mice. In fact, a mouse that had been given no amphetamines at all, placed in a group on the drug, will get so hopped up that in 10 minutes or so it will be dead. “In groups they go off like popcorn or firecracker,” the writer observed.

Develop the discipline of getting alone with God. Take time daily to find a place of no distractions to be quiet before God. You can use the time to pray, meditate or read the Bible. We often call them quiet times.

It’s also a good idea to get away for extended periods of time. If you can work it in (and you can if you really want to eradicate hurry) find a day or two periodically where you can go and be alone with God.

These are simple steps that anyone here can take. Begin implementing them immediately. If you want a longer, healthier life, deeper, more loving relationships with other people, and a closer connection with God, “you must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”

C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity says “The real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.