Life in the Fast Lane

Eat faster, drive faster, get the news faster, communicate faster, shop faster, date faster, mate faster.

Life in the fast lane is the aspiration of countless millions, regardless of the career crashes and life-wrecks that litter that lane.

It is said that the problem with living life in the fast lane is, you get to the toll booth quicker

Stress now contributes to 90% of all diseases. Half of all visits to doctors are stress-related'. Anxiety reduction' may now be the largest single business in the Western world. These days more of us will die from a stress-related illness than from infection or old age. The only advantage of living stressfully: you'll get to meet your Lord earlier!

"US workers now work on average nine full weeks more than Europeans do. We have the shortest paid vacations in the world, and in 2002 Americans gave back 175 million days of paid vacation, time they already had coming, but failed to use. {"Where Did Our Time Go?" UU World, September; October 2004 }

It is a known fact that people can become addicted to adrenaline. Know any Type-A's? It's the natural caffeine!

Life will be busy but does it have to be hurried? We need to learn the discipline of being unhurried even though we are busy.

Our hurried busyness makes us tired. The promise to us as Christians is that we will be less burdened, less weary. Christ may carry our yoke for us... but we'd as sure enough pick up another one so we might get twice as much accomplished with two of us carrying yokes!

In Genesis 1 in the account of creation we easily recall that God rested on the 7th day. Yeah, a great analogy for us but remember that He also stopped everything at the end of each day to look at what He had just accomplished. He took a time out and said "Hhhhhmm, that was good!" Daily rest. The human body was designed to require it like it requires food, h2o and air. Are you doing this each night?

In Isaiah 30:15 "In returning and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength"

But how do we exist in a world that seems to be moving in fast-forward?

Henri Nouwen said "The great paradox of our time is that many of us are busy and bored at the same time." Which tells us that there is a difference between a life fully devoted to what God has called and equipped you to do, and the mindless preoccupation that is so characteristic of life in our modern world.

Thich Nhat Hanh has said, "If we are too busy, if we are carried away everyday by our projects our uncertainty, our craving how can we have time to stop and look deeply into the situation; our own situation; the situation of our beloved ones; the situation of our family and our community." {Ibid}

.

TRUST

Sometimes it's a lack of trust that we refuse to let go of the reigns. In Exodus, the Lord speaks through Moses to hHis people to instruct them: "Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still." Exodus 14:13-14

.

So, they needed to just drop everything, stand, and trust. That can be difficult for a lot of us. But I've come to realize, with a billion people burried as my evidence, that the world will keep on spinning and life will keep on happening without me at the controls. Well, I'm pretty sure that our lack of trust that God can handle things without our input has something to do with our stress levels. But it may not account for all of it.

.
PRIORITIZATION
Maybe our inability nowadays to see the forest for the trees has somethink to do with our prioritization. Let me give you an example. Remember the story of Zaccheus? He was the vertically challenged tax collector who tried desperately to see Jesus but could not because of the large crowd awaiting to see Him pass. It was like a parade route. People for a very long distance, many persons thick, standing, cheering, waving and shouting trying to get the attention of Jesus. So Zaccheus spots a tree a little ways down the parade route and makes the brazen decision to climb it. There must have been thousands upon thousands of people to force this guy to go through such extremes to see Jesus. I makes me think ever so fondly of the parade for our conquering Boston Red Sox and the purported Millions who lined the parade route. Anyway, thanks for the momentreflectionrelection there. Back to our story. Zaccheus is sitting up in this tree and is "shock-and-awed" when Jesus stops in the road, see's him up that tree and says "Zaccheus, come on down from there. I'm going to your house for lunch." And off they go. What amazes me the most is that most of us would have thought that the incredible crowd of people was the "Main Event" or the most important thing because of the sheer magnitude of it. But Jesus knew that Zaccheus was ready to change his life around. His heart was ready. And, best of all must have been the shocked throng of people who were expecting this parade of the healer/teacher/savior/master/Son of God to finish. Can you imagine if the Sox had just stopped half-way through, veered off the parade route and went to hang out with ________! (insert here the most hated person you could think of). The media frenzy would have lasted for weeks. But it goes to show that Jesus recognized that value lied not in that which looked the biggest, but in that which, no pun intended, was the smallest.

It is why mentoring one or two people is much more productive than preaching at a large audience focused investment.

Life, Joy, Peace, Contentment, Fulfillment, Happiness, and Pleasure are to be found in the small things. If you're trying to amass stuff, you'll soon enough find that there is more stuff available than any one person can amass. And then what? You know the Jones' family? The ones everyone are trying to keep up with? They are indebted up to their eyeballs and heading for divorce court. They don't know their own children or that they are looking for peace through doing drugs. Their cholesterol is 240 and they will probably succumb to a heart attack when they are only 43 years old.

Hey, Jesus was also tempted to run life in the fast lane. After all, He was only going to be on earth for a limited amount of time. Thirty three years in which to change the world. And the first thirty were spent in a carpenter shop. By every modern standard, He ought to have been rushing at breakneck speed. And yet, Jesus knew how to stop. Remember He was driven by compassion. There were many He wanted to heal, physically & spiritually.

He was constantly taking time away to pray, rest and reflect (often while hanging and having fun with His friends "The Righteous 12.") He set it as an example.

Choice is one of the things God gave us. It's like a key. It can be used to open a door somewhere or it can be used to secure us within something.

There is a way [a direction in life] which seems right to man, but in the end leads only to death. (Proverbs 14:12)

How do we break the cycle of stress and busyness? Well, the first is to choose to do so.

Then I would apply some of the following:

1. Find the tasks that God WANTS you to do. It may mean that you drop some you've been doing "just because."

2. Take regular time off. Jesus said, 'Come apart and rest awhile'. (Besides, if you don't rest awhile, you'll soon come apart!).

3. Get proper exercise and sleep. Accompanying this is the need to eat well and try to do it with your family whenever possible.

4. Relax. The relaxation response is the opposite of the fight/flight response. Just 20 minutes a day when we're free from the tyranny of 'things present' is enough to counteract the harmful effects of stress.

5. Stay involved with a small support group and your church family.

6. Change your thinking. Take a personal audit. Reassess your goals. Do this periodically.

7. Have fun! To belong to the kingdom you have to be like little children. Do this and the Kingdom of God belongs to you! Besides, you'll live longer. Eternally maybe!