Pathways Press.com

MEDITATION:

Written by Rich Villodas, a contemporary American pastor and author. This is an excerpt from his book “The Deeply Formed Life: Five Transformative Values to Root Us in the Way of Jesus.”

Our lives can easily take us to the brink of burnout. The pace we live at is often destructive. The lack of margin is debilitating. We are worn out. In all of this, the problem before us is not just the frenetic pace we live at but what gets pushed out from our lives as a result; that is, life with God…What would it look like to live at a different pace? What if there were a rhythm of life that could instead enable us to deeply connect with God, a lifestyle not dominated by hurry and exhaustion but by margin and joy? As long as we remain enslaved to a culture of speed, superficiality, and distraction, we will not be the people God longs for us to be. We desperately need a spirituality that roots us in a different way…The pace of our lives can be brutal.  The late theologian Kosuke Koyama wrote a book titled Three-Mile-an-Hour God.  Dr. Koyama was trying to convey that if we want to connect with God, we’d be wise to travel at God’s speed. God has all the time in the world, and as a result, he is not in a rush. Thus, Koyama’s claim that God travels at three miles an hour is not an arbitrary figure. On average, humans walk at this pace. And it’s in just such ambling, unhurried, and leisurely moments that we often encounter God. N.T. Wright similarly affirmed, “It is only when we slow down our lives that we can catch up with God.” … Speed has helped remake our world in ways that are wonderful and liberating. But speed has also caused our connections with God and others to be incredibly superficial. There’s a severe lack of depth in our lives and communities because we have allowed ourselves to be swept up by a world under the influence of addictive speed. And, as philosopher Dallas Willard famously said, “Hurry is the enemy of spiritual life in our day.”

PRAYER:

Written by Rachel Wojo, a contemporary author and speaker.

Dear Father,

Thank you for this exact point in time.

Sometimes I struggle

To enjoy the gift of the present.

I push forward before your timing is perfect

And then feel the pain of rushing.

My spirit longs to savor the moment

While my mind scrambles to snatch the next minute.

Will you slow my heart to beat your rhythm?

Will you sync my step to mirror your tempo?

May my spirit fail to chase after the next beautiful experience

Until I’ve unwrapped the gift of right now-the present.

Amen.