Eliminating Hurry

The phrase, ‘‘You are what you eat’’ originally appeared in 1826 when Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, a French lawyer, politician, and famous gastronome, wrote ‘‘Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es’’, which translates to ‘Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are’. The phrase resurfaced in the 1920s when nutritionist Victor Lindlahr used it in association with ‘bad’ food by saying that ‘‘Ninety per cent of the diseases known to man are caused by cheap food stuffs. You are what you eat.’’

It is widely accepted that ‘what goes in must come out’. John Mark Comer in his book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to stay emotionally healthy and spiritually alive in the chaos of the modern world says, “Because what you give your attention to is the person you become…what you fill your mind with will shape the trajectory of your character. In the end, your life is no more than the sum of what you gave your attention to. That bodes well for those apprentices of Jesus who give the bulk of their attention to him and to all that is good, beautiful, and true in his world. But not for those who give their attention to the 24-7 news cycle of outrage and anxiety and emotion-charged drama or the nonstop feed of celebrity gossip, titillation, and cultural drivel. (As if we “give” it in the first place; much of it is stolen by a clever algorithm out to monetize our precious attention.) But again: we become what we give our attention to, for better or worse.”

In Matthew 22:40 Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Hurry is the antithesis of love. In Corinthians 13:4 the first word to describe love is that, “Love is patient”. Micah 6:8 calls us to, “walk humbly with God” not to run!

Like the discipline of fasting, by choosing to deny ourselves from the need to be constantly productive, to choose to intentionally slow down, we create space to “...Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10

If you are interested in some of John Mark Comer’s tips to help you with this in a world that seems to always promote rushing, have a look at this video. May God bless you as you allow Jesus to set the pace of your heart.