In his thought-provoking book In Praise of Slowness, journalist Carl Honore comments on the challenges of our fast-paced culture. He writes:

Speed has helped to remake our world in ways that are wonderful and liberating. Who wants to live in a world without Internet or jet travel? The problem is that our love of speed, our obsession with doing more and more in less and less time, has gone too far; it has turned into an addiction, a kind of idolatry. Even when speed starts to backfire, we invoke the go-faster gospel.

Falling behind at work? Get a quicker Internet connection. No time for that novel you got at Christmas? Learn to speed-read. Diet not working? Try liposuction. Too busy to cook? Buy a microwave.

And yet some things cannot, should not, be sped up. They take time; they need slowness. When you accelerate things that should not be accelerated, when you forget how to slow down, there is a price to pay.[1]

“Some things cannot, should not, be sped up. They take time; they need slowness.” This rings true in my own experience. In fact, the most important things in my life are the areas that most need a strong dose of slowness. When I try to hurry things like prayer, reflection, study, relationships, and ministry, they are only impoverished.

Perhaps one reason we rush through life is that so much demands our attention. There are more skills to learn, more people to meet, more information to know, and more places to go than ever before. Because we can actually do so much (thanks to high-speed travel and global connectivity), we try harder to keep up. We simply have to hurry if we are to know, learn, and do it all.

Donald Whitney commented that “we’ve now reached a point where the average weekday edition of the New York Times contains more information than Jonathan Edwards would have encountered in his entire eighteenth-century lifetime.”[2] No wonder we are so much more hurried than Edwards. No wonder we accomplish so much less.

Edwards had . . .

• less information to know (he lived in a small village in colonial New England),

• fewer skills to learn (no cars, no cell phones, no iPods, no Internet, no computers, no software), and

• fewer places to go (he never left New England), with fewer options for getting there (most of his travel would have been on horseback).

Yet Edwards’ habits of mind shame even the best minds of our day. He often spent as many as 13 hours a day studying, while having rich spiritual experiences in prayer and worship.

Although he owned fewer than 500 books, he kept journals, composed sermons, and penned treatises that are still being read by philosophers, theologians, ethicists, historians, preachers, and ordinary Christians. Even his letters are deeply thought-provoking.

And he and his wife, Sarah, reared ten believing children! So, although Edwards had fewer books, fewer resources, fewer conveniences, and even a shorter life (dying at age 54), he did so much more with less.

Of course, none of us can be Jonathan Edwards, nor should we try. He was a genius in a class by himself. Most of us would not care to return to a culture lacking our technological amenities either, and I’m not suggesting that we should. But we should slow down and invest unhurried, quality time in the most important areas of life:

• Prayer

• Worship

• Reflection

• Relationships

• Ministry

“When you accelerate things that should not be accelerated, when you forget how to slow down, there is a price to pay.” The price may well be intimacy with God and others, depth of thought, and quality of long-lasting ministry.

Where do you need to slow down? Where would less be more?

End Notes

 

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[2] Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress), p. 46.