Myths About Living An Unhurried Life

Here we are in the new year. And, don’t worry, no one is going to encourage you to make resolutions. They rarely last more than a couple of weeks anyway.

All I want to do today is remind you why it’s good to engage unhurried living. And I’m not talking about our organization. I’m talking about your very own life.

Let’s begin with some common myths about living an unhurried life.

• It’s pain free.
• It’s a luxury.
• It’s lazy.
• It’s out of touch.

These ideas could not be farther from the truth.

An unhurried life is actually:

• Willing to see and move through the hard stuff because you know that healing awaits on the other side.

• The essential core as we sustainably engage our relationships and our work.

• More fruitful than that our regular frantic busyness.

• Sees beyond the surface. It's rooted in kingdom reality.

• An unhurried life is about making time for what matters most. It is connected to the most essential realities of our lives.

• An unhurried life is good for our physical and mental health.

So let me encourage you. Don’t give up. Let’s double down on healthy rhythms of life this year. Let’s put times of reflection, replenishment and play on our calendars and guard them like a doctor’s appointment.

Unhurried time is always counterintuitive and nothing in our culture will push you to engage it. But I encourage you to make space and time for God, for your loved ones, for rest, and for the fruitful work to which you are called.

Here are some practical steps you can take to calendar the important stuff.

• Decide what you want to engage. Here are a few ideas to get you rolling:
  • Weekly Sabbath (rest and play)
  • Monthly solitude half day*
  • Quarterly overnight retreat*
  • Yearly vacation
• Go out to the part of your calendar that has more white space in it. That may be two or three months out, but start there.
• Schedule the ideas from above that work for you (and come up with your own).
• Calendar your rhythms for the remainder of the year (before the powers that be take up space in your calendar).
• Yes, it’s that easy. Discern it. Schedule it.

*If you have young children at home, give each other the gift of swapping solitude days or even overnight retreats.

Give it a go and let us know when you calendar all this goodness. We’d love to hear from you.

Blessings to you in the new year!

Photo by Veronica García on Unsplash