Notes from May 14th, 2010: Solitude

Changing Your Life

  •  Is your life too busy?
  • What is the pace of your life?
  • What condition is your heart in?

A prescription: Ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.

It may seem impossible but could you do it if your life depended on it? 

There is a battle going on between spiritual life and hurry. The primary concern in this battle is not that we will renounce our faith but that we will be so distracted, rushed, and preoccupied, that we will have at best a mediocre, half-hearted spiritual life.

Hurry Sickness (hurrying buys more time)

Forty years ago, time management experts believed that work weeks would be cut back by technological advancements. Products that promise to deliver a particular service faster or take less time thrive in our society. The best selling shampoo launch ever in North America was when a company combined shampoo and conditioner; Domino’s pizza was the bestselling delivery pizza out there purely based on it’s promise to deliver within 29 minutes, the quality of the product (which was horrible) was a secondary concern; and fast food restaurants developed the drive thru because customers complained that buying fast food wasn’t fast enough.

In the words of the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland “Now here, you see, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.”  

One definition of hurry sickness is as follows: above all, a continuous struggle to accomplish or achieve more and more things or participate in more and more events in less and less time, frequently in the face of opposition, real or imagined, from other persons.

Jesus knew how to avoid hurry sickness and repeatedly withdrew from crowds and activities. He urged his followers to rest and to eat because you cannot follow someone when you are ahead of them. Jesus never lost the connection to his Father and He never stopped loving because when He withdrew, He did so for solitude and prayer.

How do we diagnose hurry sickness?

  • A speeding up person will read, talk, nod faster to try to speed the talker up.
  • We guess which lane will move faster at a grocery store, behind cars.. we must be in it. If we pick the right lane, we win. If we pick the wrong lane, we lost time.
  • We become super multiple-taskers. It is called doing more than one thing at a time. In the car do you eat, drink coffee, monitor the radio/music, shave or do hair/makeup, talk on the phone, text, make gestures…. all at the same time
  • At home do you watch tv, read, eat dinner, text, surf the net and carry on a conversation at the same time.

 Symptoms of Hurry Sickness

1. Clutter: no simplicity, weighed down by cares or worries

  • many books, magazines I want to get to
  • time saving gadgets with no time to use
  • also the clutter of missed appointments

 2. Superficiality: depth is slow, takes time

  • we have traded wisdom for information and exchanged depth for breadth
  • we want microwave maturity

 3. Inability to Love

  • love and hurry are incompatible
  • love takes time
  • sunset fatigue – at the end of an exhausting day, those who need us the most, get little or nothing
  • hurry kills love. Hurry creates anger, frustration and bitterness. Hurry prevents receiving God’s love and giving it.

 How do I know if I am too hurried? (True or False)

 I often think there is not enough hours in the day. T / F

 I often do or think more than one thing at a time. T / F

 I often have trouble getting rid of stuff. T / F

 I often want to know right now. T / F

 Test for Sunset Fatigue (True or False)

I find myself rushing even when there’s no reason to. T / F

I feel an underlying tension that causes sharp words or quarrels. T / F

I set up mock races that really in order to get through “it” as quickly as possible. T / F

I sense a loss of gratitude and wonder. T / F

I indulge in self-destructive behaviour as escapes from fatigue. T / F

 Reviewing the Day with God

  1. Be still, quiet your mind.
  2. Acknowledge Jesus. Invite him to teach you.
  3. Go back to the morning, when you woke up, review it like a movie
  4. Go throughout the day, speak to God about it (you may need to pray about forgiveness, courage, greater love, etc.) 
  5. Thank God for mercy and love…

 Curing Hurry Sickness

 1. Slow Down

  • deliberately put yourself in a position where you will have to wait, like driving in the slow lane on the highway. People hurry because they are worried they will accomplish less.

2. Seek Solitude

  • Jesus did this often; solitude is the one place where we can find freedom from all the societal pressures that try to mold and control us.
  • If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water he will jump out, but if you put him in a pot of warm water and gradually turn the heat up he will sit there and acclimate until he boils to death. Most of us run away from extreme danger like the frog and the boiling water, but we don’t seem to notice the growing danger as we gradually get busier and busier, just like the frog doesn’t notice the water getting hotter and hotter.
  • solitude is a remedy for busyness
  • solitude requires perseverance
  • there are two types or kinds of solitude: brief (on a regular basis, a few minutes here and there) and long (a half-day, a day, a few days).

NOTE: May 28th is our monthly social! We are meeting at the church as usual for worshp and then going to LazerQuest. We have booked two games at $5 per game, so bring $5-$10 with you! :)

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