The “Skill”

I have a skill I don’t like to talk about, but I’m going to talk about it anyway. My skill is this: I can hurry even when there’s nothing to do. I know, it sounds impossible. But I assure you I’m actually quite good at it. Partly because I can hurry with my mind and/or my body, so even if I’m sitting on the couch I can do a lot of mental hurrying. Hurrying is the evil twin of my long-cherished idol, productivity. I feel safest when I am getting things done, but if I can’t actually be accomplishing something there is always hurry to help me feel better.

The Story

If I go back really far, I think I can remember a time before hurry was my identity. As a young child, I didn’t have to worry much about time because the grownups did that. I could play without thinking about time or schedule. I remember spending hours washing one meal’s dishes – making as many soap bubbles as possible. And those are good memories. Kids are skilled at being fully present (and very slow).

As my awareness of time increased and my responsibilities grew, somewhere along the line I realized that if I hurried I was valuable. People who get things done are desirable – as family members, students, employees, and even friends. And it’s not that getting things done is bad. But for me it was a slippery slope from being a hard working teen to adopting hurry as a frame of mind and a way of having value. Without my knowing it, hurry became a deeply ingrained part of my identity.

Then – a couple decades later – God asked our family to make a lifestyle change – to pursue slowness, so to speak. Around the first of this year we eliminated most afternoon and evening commitments and reduced weekend activities. We began to more carefully consider all the invitations and opportunities that came our way. Then the pandemic hit and our pace has slowed even more.

Somehow the slowing of my schedule has opened my eyes to the hurry of my soul. Here I am with only the basic tasks of living before me, and I’m still carrying around this sense that I am not being productive enough or fast enough. I’m still rushing my kids, even though we have nowhere to go. I begin to wonder, do I have hurry in my soul? How is it possible that I can have nothing on my schedule and still feel compelled to rush through the dishes; to lament a to-do list not finished when I have all of tomorrow to finish it; to hurriedly try to fold the last load of laundry while yelling instructions to my children to get ready for bed?

The Evidence

I’ve noticed hurry has many faces. Most of them are smiled upon in our culture. Here are some of the ways hurry shows up in my life:

• Efficiency: if I’m not washing or shaving something, I’m not in the shower – I never just stand under the water. When I carry groceries in from the car, I bring them all in one load even though it cuts the circulation off in my arm and I can’t open the door because my hands are full.
• Another face of hurry is busyness: oh, there’s a slot on my calendar not filled? I’ll plan a play date, sign up for an evening class, start exercising with a friend, start a new craft project, clean the basement.
• And let’s not forget always saying “yes”: sure, I can direct VBS; I can listen to all your problems; I can make 21 meals a week from scratch; I can do that project; I’ll be a board member and deaconess and volunteer at the elementary school.
• Hurry also shows up in multitasking: I always feel better when I’m doing laundry and dishes at the same time, catching up on emails while helping my daughter with homework, crocheting while I watch a movie… you get the idea.
• Another evidence of hurry in my life is that I cannot abide waiting. Say we’re leaving the house to exercise. I’m ready, but my husband is just putting his socks on. It would cause me physical discomfort to wait for one minute. So I start something – wipe down the kitchen counter, take out the trash, open some mail, pull weeds in the yard. Waiting is simply too uncomfortable. If I have to wait, I immediately find something to do. Consequently, I am often the last one in the car when our family leaves the house. Everyone else buckles up while I’m finishing the thing I started because I couldn’t wait.
• I am never early to anything. Being early is excruciating. Everyone is just milling around; nothing is happening. I could have been doing something else with this time. I would much rather be five minutes late than shoot for being on time and somehow end up five minutes early.
• While I’m airing all my dirty laundry, I will also note that I am really bad at “hanging out.” The concept of getting together with one or more friends for an indefinite period of time with an indefinite purpose is terrifying. I thrive in groups with a purpose – exercise, accountability, music, church, mom groups. Also, I can probably count on one hand the number of times in my life I have called someone “just to chat.” I simply don’t know how, and the vulnerability along with the potential of wasting time make this pastime completely out of the question for me.

I think you get the idea. Hurry is showing up all over the place in my life. It feels like I gave hurry permission to be my master. Did I sign something without realizing it? How did I sell my soul and not even notice?

Hurry is like a drug. It’s my go-to when I feel stressed or vulnerable. And if I’m not hurrying myself, I hurry the people around me. I ask my kids, “Why are you still eating?” “How could you possibly take that long to put away one toy?” “You’ve been in your room for 20 minutes and you’re still not dressed?!” I hurry my husband: get out of bed faster; get the yard work done sooner; how can you possibly spend that long in the bathroom?! As John Mark Comer says of his slowed-down life, “I feel… like a drug addict coming off meth.” (From his book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry)

The Underlying Causes

So the evidence is in: I have a problem, and I’m calling it hurry. But what is underneath the hurry? I am afraid of something – no, two things. I am afraid of finding out I am not valuable, and I am afraid of finding out I am not in control. I believe the first statement is false and the second is true, but somehow they get all entangled inside me.

Not valuable. Somewhere deep in myself I’m still not sure about the gospel. This too-good-to-be-true story drenched in reckless mercy and grace… it can’t really apply to me, right? Some days this is my question. I don’t ask it that boldly. No, I scold myself for making another mommy mess-up. I replay the words I wish I hadn’t said. I keep score.

Other days, when I’m feeling a bit more successful at life, I get cocky. I think I have some control over my life, and I’m exercising my skills – including hurry in all its forms – to insure a good outcome. On these days, I don’t have questions. I feel self-sufficient, and I think maybe I’m finally figuring life out. I take comfort in the (false) security of control (let’s be honest, this is me playing god – being my own savior).

The Antidote

I wonder, what is the antidote to hurry? What will soothe and satisfy this scrambling and striving in my soul? Could there be a truth that addresses both the striving days and the cocky days? The I’m-not-good-enough and the I-(think)-I’m-in-control days? I’m reading John chapter five and am arrested by verse 30: “I can do nothing on my own. I judge as God tells me. Therefore, my judgment is just, because I carry out the will of the one who sent me, not my own will.” (NLT) Not my own will. Is this the way? What if I’m not living for myself? What if my choices are not calculated to control my own destiny? What if a real life is a life lived in continual surrender: not my will, but Thine. Perhaps the way to cease striving, to live a valuable life, is to be in a constant state of surrender. Perhaps the way to stop grasping for control is to trust the will of Someone who is in control.

I have circled around this concept before. I have marveled that surrender is, in fact, freeing. That if I’m not in charge of my life, there is nothing to worry about. I’m just doing what the Big Guy is telling me to do, and it’s His job to work it all out. But the lies I have internalized fight back. The moments – day in and day out – letting His agenda be more important than mine – these moments are hard. I do cry tears as I let go. And sometimes I hold on and won’t let go. It is a slow practice, and imperfect is a hard road for a recovering perfectionist.

The Trade

Am I willing to make the trade? Will I trade control for trust and hurry for surrender? Rather than the exhausting cycle of hurry and control, I could let surrender and trust feed on each other: trust allowing me to surrender, and surrender sending me skidding into the necessity of trust. I could let my Creator speak the truth of my value over me, and I could admit that He is in control.

Here I am, hurrying and worrying through slow and quiet days. Here God shows up, opening my eyes to this parasite on my soul, and offering to take it from me. Slowly He heals, for He knows that giving up control will cause bleeding. Yet He never gives up, because He is determined that I should have the best of His gifts, the abundance of His grace, the wonder of His mercy, the safety of His companionship.

As I haltingly respond to this invitation to trade hurry for surrender, I repeat to myself the “Creed of the Beloved” so simply and beautifully penned by Bobby Schuller:

I’m not what I do.
I’m not what I have.
I’m not what people say about me.
I am the beloved of God.
It’s who I am.
No one can take it from me.
I don’t have to worry.
I don’t have to hurry.
I can trust my friend Jesus and share his love with the world.