 Our culture in large part is fueled by fast. Fast cars, fast food, fast Wi-Fi, we get frustrated when we don't have access to these things because fast has become such an integral part of our life. That's just the way life should be, optimally. We believe that fast is good and slow is bad and the sentiment is continually reinforced in Western culture in large part. But is this really a bad mentality? I mean you gotta grind, you gotta hustle to make your dreams come true, to accomplish what you need to accomplish. Is it hard work of virtue? So what's wrong with hurry? For me the mentality of hurry comes so easy to my life. It feels so natural to go from one thing to another thing to another thing to have my schedule packed with all the things that I need to do and accomplish in places to be and people to see it feels comforting in a way. It makes me believe that I'm doing something with my life, that I'm not wasting my life because at least I can look back at my calendar and say, okay at least you're doing something, you're hustling, you're working hard, you're making things happen. But one of the things I encountered was what John Mark Comer describes in his book, the ruthless elimination of hurry which I'll grab for you here. Here it is. He points out a symptom called hurry sickness and I want to read to you some of the symptoms of it and see if you relate, irritability, hypersensitivity, restlessness, workaholism, emotional numbness, out of order priorities, lack of care for your body, escapist behaviors, slippage of spiritual disciplines, isolation. Okay, I can see at least five of those that really hit home for me. I've definitely seen slippage of spiritual disciplines in times in my life where I'm just consumed with hurry. I think to myself, if I cut out Bible reading and prayer in the morning on this particular day, maybe not every morning, but just today, then I'll get so much more done and I'll be so much more ahead and I'll feel so much more at peace because I've gotten done what I need to get done and it's not that big a deal. I'll get back to it tomorrow and you just get in this habit and this cycle of making these excuses. Another symptom that I've seen is irritability when I'm super in a hurry and I need to get a lot of things done and I feel anxious and insecure about, oh man, have I done enough today or am I productive enough and you're just turning to one thing to the next and all of a sudden you encounter an inconvenience, you're just triggered in a huge way and it could just be a normal conversation with somebody where they're taking their time. They want to have a connecting moment, but you're like, I got to move on to the next thing and so you're irritable. Another piece is hypersensitivity for me. I don't know if you guys have experienced this, but when you are constantly in a hurry, you are dysregulated. Your system, your emotional system, your body, you're basically putting yourself in fight or flight mode constantly and so it makes sense why you'd be extra hypersensitive to specific things. Somebody said something to you that might have just been an offhanded comment, but then you take it really personally and all of a sudden has this big impact and you're starting to question things and all of a sudden you realize, wait a minute, why am I so hypersensitive here? It's because we're hurrying. Our souls are not at peace. Now perhaps you can relate with some of the symptoms of hurry sickness, but another element of hurry that is really damaging to us is within our relationships. You think about relationships are at their best. We are patient, we are present, but what does hurry do? Well, it puts this aura of impatience where we're trying to get to the next thing and a lack of presence where our mind and our heart is oriented towards life as some sort of to-do list of things we need to check off rather than experiences that need to be have and connections that need to be made. I can have a conversation with somebody and in that moment, they can be seeking to connect with me in a deep way, but my mind and my heart can be oriented towards, okay, once I'm done this conversation, I'm going to be doing this and I'm going to be doing this and then I need to get this done and you see how my heart isn't present and my mind isn't present in the moment with this person and how there's going to be no connection, no intimacy that's going to be found there and so it's a detrimental way of approaching life and I have a really hard time with this. I constantly find myself not being present in the moment and what I find is the trigger of hurry in my life is anxiety, fear and insecurity. Anxiety, fear and insecurity. See if you relate with this is in the moments where I am most anxious and most fearful and most insecure about my life or my work more specifically, my career, then I tend to overemphasize the amount of time that I put into it and attention I give to it in order to compensate for that fear and anxiety and insecurity. So in moments where I feel like oh maybe I'm not doing enough or maybe this isn't working out the way that I wanted it to or maybe I'm starting to slip behind on certain things. So then all of a sudden I go into hurry mode, okay, it's kind of a state of panic, of repair, okay, I need to fix something and then any kind of relationship or anything honestly that would get in the way of me remedying that anxiety or fear or insecurity in the way that I believe is best all of a sudden causes irritation and hypersensitivity and just honestly anger towards that thing and I need to push any of that out that's stopping me from remedying this problem. What I found also is that hurry kills joy and gratitude. You think about it, what are we seeking when we are in a constant state of hurry? If it's around your career, then you're trying to get more money, more status, more power, more security. We're seeking after something that we do not have or we don't believe that we have. It's a constant state of discontentment is what it is. And so it absolutely kills any sense of contentment and gratitude for just God, thank you for giving me what I have in this moment. Thank you for giving me the security and the comfort that you've provided in this moment, the opportunities that you've given and helped me just rest in that and actually established a sense of balance in my life where I can rest and work and enjoy your good gifts as opposed to constantly be wanting more. I don't have this. I need this. So I need to be in the state of hustle or hurry or grinding because I want that Lambo or I want that nice house or whatever that looks like for you. Maybe it's even more simple. Maybe it's even more base level. And I understand that I was the same way in a lot of ways when I was still living at my parents house. It was like, okay, let me just get to the base level of like where I can support myself, where I can move out. I don't need the big stuff. I don't need the mansion or the Lambo, but I need to hustle in order to make this happen. And I understand a lot of people are in that stage of life where they feel like and a lot of ways I feel the same way where it's like, I need to be hustling. I need to be hurrying. It's not just like, I'm not in this place where I can just relax. You know what I'm saying? Like it doesn't feel right. And so I guess what I would say to that is that we what we can do is although we need to engage in working hard in our daily life, our heart and our mentality needs to be shifted. Even though in our day to day life, it might not change a lot. Like we might still have to do all the same stuff that we're doing, but at least our heart can be oriented in a more healthy way. John Ortberg said this, hurry is not a disordered schedule. It's a disordered heart. It's a heart that's the problem here. It's not necessarily that we have a lot to do or that we're mismanaging the time that we have, even though that could definitely be a piece of it, is that our heart is constantly in want or it's in or it's anxiety or it's fear or it's greed. And we need to address that first. And then we can get into the practical steps of actually saying no to things of ordering our schedule in a much more healthy way and rhythms of life that can provide ultimately more productivity and a more grounded way to approach life. Corey Ten Boom said, if the devil can't make you bad, he's going to make you busy. The devil uses our fear or anxiety or worry to put us in this state of panic, of emotionally unstable, just hurry. The truth is, if we don't believe we're enough with God, if we don't believe that he is enough to satisfy our need for security and significance, then we will always be looking in things of this world to satisfy those needs. And ultimately, that will lead us to this place of panic, of hurry, of unbridled hustle. Billionaire John Rockefeller was asked how much more money he would need to make to be enough. How much more would you need to make to be content? Do you know what he said? Just imagine yourself in his position. You're a billionaire. How much more money would you need to be content to feel like, you know what? This is enough. And you know what he said? Just a little bit more. This might be a little bit shocking to you, but if we look deep within the mentality and the tendencies of people that don't have Christ, this is the mentality. It's nothing is enough. I always need a little bit more. And hurry is also the promotion of that idea. It says, you know, just do a little bit more. Work a little bit harder. You know, quicken your pace a little bit. Do more because then you'll get to that next step. You'll get to that next rung. You'll do that thing and you'll be satisfied. You'll be content and you see this heart orientation. That's why we can get up, you know, in anxiety and fear and panic so quickly because there's things in the back of our mind saying you're not doing enough or just a little bit more. You can get it and there's greed and it's pride and it's anxiety and it's awful and it's controlling you. And that's not what God wants for you. That's not the life that God wants you to live. I want to invite you into something. If your life is oriented around God's mission for you, which is glorifying him, then why would we focus so much of our attention on things that God doesn't see as the most important, right? And why would we neglect the things that God does see as most important? So when we're talking about things that God sees as most important is his word and prayer, prayer to him. I mentioned earlier that one of the first things to go for me in these seasons of hurry was the spiritual disciplines because I would see them as irrelevant or maybe not as important or I'll get to them tomorrow. But if my desire, my heart is to glorify God, then why would I push away the very things that God has commanded me to do that bring him so much glory? Also being present with people around me of caring for other people, of bearing one another's burdens. If I'm so consumed and enraptured with my own endeavors, then when will I make the time to go about God's calling in my life in that regard? I won't. And so you see here how we are just totally off course when we let hurry take hold of us, when we let our anxiety, our pride, our fear, our greed take a hold of us and push us into the state of panic of work of hurry. No, God wants so much more for our lives than that. And he has a greater calling on your life than that. So how do we enter that? Well, we begin to say no to certain things in our life that are causing us to be consumed with hurry. We cut back on things that aren't as important. And we start to make those clean and clear evaluations of our life. We approach life with not, Oh, man, I need to do these things in order to find my security and my significance, but rather looking to God, because he has already provided those things in himself in a relationship with him, where I don't need to show up at work every day, looking for praise or looking for power in order to fulfill my needs in order to fulfill that whole, but rather I can come in with a full cup, an overflowing cup of delight of just getting to approach every day with this joy that God is equipping me in this moment to do my work excellently. And at the end of the day, I can rest knowing that my identity is not in those things that I don't need to hurry all the time to prove to myself that I'm okay, that in God I'm enough. And that's all that matters that his grace is enough for me. His love is enough for me. His security is enough for me. So I don't need to clamor at the power and the praise of other people. That's not what's most important to me now. And it gives me such a peace, honestly, to approach life with that rest. God is enough for me. That's all that matters. Thanks so much for watching this video, guys. If you enjoyed it and got something from it, I encourage you to give it a like down below and subscribe because I'm putting out new videos all the time. This content is made possible by my patrons on Patreon. If you want to support my mission of equipping people to follow Jesus daily, hit the link in my description and sign up today. It would be a huge blessing. I'll see you next time. God bless.