Speed

In a church conference several years ago, like a galaxy far away ago, I kept thinking the whole time this particular presenter was speaking; 'what makes me uneasy about what this cat is talking about?' What he was saying was familiar, so that's OK. What he was talking about at least in concert with the way humanity moves, was even logical.

He was talking about how Christians drag their feet, and God has to often wait for us to catch up to Him all the time and how we needed to move faster to keep pace with the dynamic move of God.

So what was my problem?

I started getting edgy, fidgety .. restless. I was having a hard time reconciling my internal ledger about the presenters assertion regarding speed, it wasn't sitting well in the place where the word of God sits in you - for some reason I was having a negative reaction. I should insert here, it's during these times when the familiar voice of my wife internally recorded in my memory bank - and honestly for good reason - will say; 'Dan you don't always have to be you'.

Rightly interpreted, this means I should keep my unrest to my self until further notice or at least until there is more substantiated reason for concern. So, that day I stayed in my seat and took mental note of my disagreement.

By your own experience you know the presenter got it wrong. The tendencies of our humanity, the result of having free will and the way we are wired - by God - is for speed. To move fast. Even the people you judge as moving too slow are moving fast - their just moving in the opposite direction of you.

Please observe:
God moves at a much slower speed than us.
He sees at a much slower speed than us.
He responds at a much slower speed than us.

We would do well to learn and practice at least two vital components to be successful in our followership of God: We must slow our own shutter speed down and we must realize that the significant issues of our lives cannot be solved at the same speed by which they were created.

Slowing the shutter speed down, like in a camera allows you to significantly take in more light, which gives you greater exposure in truly capturing what you're looking at. Slowing the shutter speed down gives you the visual 'speed bump' to take in more of the panorama of what God is really doing in your moments.

Crisis happens like a rogue wave; fast and sudden. The real, I mean the real and true problem with any crisis is not the crisis itself but the speed by which it happens and equally more disastrous the speed by which we attempt to respond to it or worse yet try to solve it.

God is a slow/fast God. Undisciplined followership of Him is fast/slow.

Whatever your facing today that can be under the heading of crisis - slow down. There is something in the landscape of your crisis that God sees as vastly more interesting and important than the crisis itself.

Dan
A Runner