Do you feel like you’re always in a hurry? Rushing here to this appointment, running there to pick someone or something up. When we are in a hurry, we seem to be focused on the end result and we miss so much along the way. I believe when we hurry, many times we pass by God and miss what He’s doing. Even when we’re sharing a story with another, if we rush through it to the end, we miss the God-incidences along the way.
Did you know the word “hurry” only appears in scripture 15 times and only one of those times is found in the New Testament [Acts 20:16]. In contrast, the word “wait” shows up 89 times in scripture and 17 of those times are in the New Testament. “Wait” is in the New Testament more times than the word “hurry” shows up in the entire Bible.
Never in scripture do we see Jesus in a hurry. He always took His time, stopping along the way to pay attention to those who needed Him. When Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem, He encountered the 10 lepers and healed them [Luke 11-19]. He didn’t tell them to move on; He had a schedule to keep. He stopped and listened to them and then He responded.
In Matthew 9:20-22 we read of Jesus passing through a crowd, but pausing for a woman who had enough faith to reach out and touch Him for healing. He didn’t rebuke her for holding Him up. Instead, He lovingly called her “daughter” and declared her healed.
Jesus never put schedule ahead of relationship. His schedule was always trumped by people. It was for the people He surrendered His crown and came to earth.
How many times have we missed opportunities to be used by God because our focus was on doing instead of being? Was the task we accomplished worth missing God? Maybe there are some things on our “to do” list that really don’t need doing. Life is meant to be experienced, not just accomplished. What’s the hurry? If we aren’t careful, we might be in such a hurry, we could miss God.