“An easy life isn’t an option; an easy yoke is.”
The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer
I recently finished The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer. Go read it if you haven’t, it’s so good. This book challenged me with the idea of what hurry and busyness look like. Sometimes what we think is productivity is actually just busyness in disguise. We are consumed by the need to be on the go. If we’re not on the go, then we’re just wasting our time. But in all honesty, that’s just not true. I’ve felt the weight of that a lot. But here I am feeling a stillness for once.
Coming into month 7, I was ready for so much. I think I was ready to experience this huge change somehow. A change in the environment. A change in the spiritual atmosphere. But instead of feeling a change, I feel a stillness. It’s slow. My American mindset thinks I should be doing more. I should be going and going. But the thing is…I have been. I have been doing this thing for the last 7 months. And I believe that this is a month where the Lord provided stillness. He reminded us of what it means to live a life unhurried. A life that isn’t clouded by what’s next but rather what’s right in front of us. Taking advantage of the still and slow moments that He gives us. He is not a God who is ever in a hurry. He’s a God who has His own timing, whatever that may look like.
He provides those moments in small ways. He provides them by picking plums while praying over the land that will be a church in the future. He provides a 2-hour bus ride to a women’s Bible study where we get to be encouraged by one another. He provides by in sitting coffee shops and talking to the baristas and forming friendships. He provides by allowing our team to come together and learn more about each other and how to love each other better.
Those are just a few of the small ways I’ve seen the Lord. They aren’t these huge ways we think He always works in. Rather they are the small slow moments that remind us it’s okay to go slow and rest. So maybe I am feeling a change in the spiritual atmosphere and maybe that change is the unhurried pace of the Lord.
This month the Lord has really put Matthew 11:28-30 on my heart and as I think about it, the more it makes sense as I think about my month as well. Resting in the Lord, actually makes our work so much lighter. When we take time to be still and walk slowly with the Lord, we actually find that the work He has asked us to do becomes so much easier.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30
Thank you Jesus for a month of stillness and rest with You. Thank you for your easy yoke.
