Reason #4: Rushing
Part of a series looking at why our quiet times sometimes aren't working, and what we can do to change that.
I’m writing this post sitting on the verandah at our family farm. It’s my day off. The only sounds are birds and cicadas, and the occasional bellow of cows in the distance.
I have a whole day with a hammock and no pressures - no timetable, no rushing.
And it strikes me how unusual that is in modern life.
What has happened to us?
Photo by mauro mora on Unsplash
In his classic book Adrenalin and Stress, Arch Hart refers to the epidemic of what he calls “hurry sickness”. He writes:
The pace of life has accelerated dramatically in the past forty or fifty years. Most of us barely find time to brush our teeth, let alone spend time in relaxation, meditation, or reflection. Our culture is oriented toward speed and efficiency; it is hard to succeed unless we keep up with or move faster than everyone else.1
Hart wrote those words in 1995. In the thirty years since, with changes in technology and lifestyle, the pace of life has only increased.
What’s that got to do with our quiet times?
For many of us, the busyness of our day shapes the way we approach Bible reading and prayer.
We grab ten minutes of Bible reading on the way to work, our minds already racing ahead to our To Do list. We choose devotional books built around a short passage, a brief comment, and a two-sentence prayer.
Just browsing some devotional titles says it all:
3 Minute Devotions for Women
The One Year Love Language Minute Devotional
A Mindful Moment: 5-Minute Meditations and Devotions
Convenience and speed often become our priority, rather than depth. Our quiet time becomes something to get done, rather than a space for real growth in godliness and our relationship with God.
And that’s one reason our quiet times sometimes aren’t working.
Hurrying keeps them at surface level
Many devotionals jump to a different passage each day, often without context. Over time it becomes difficult to retain what we’ve read or embed it deeply in our lives.
It reminds me of James’ warning:
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. (James 1:22-24)
When I’m rushing, my quiet times easily become superficial. I repeat the same prayers. I land on the same predictable applications. I go through the motions.
It becomes a spiritual version of fast food - quick, convenient, but ultimately unsatisfying.
That’s a far cry from the delight we see in Psalm 119:
I delight in your commands
because I love them. v 47Your statutes are my heritage forever;
they are the joy of my heart.
My heart is set on keeping your decrees
to the very end. vv. 111-112
Deep joy in God’s word rarely grows in hurried soil.
How long should a quiet time take?
Photo by Andrik Langfield on Unsplash
I often get asked this question.
Should it be 30 minutes? 40 minutes? An hour? Should we feel rebuked that we’re not getting up at 4am like a spiritual version of Jocko Willink? Or like Martin Luther, who is widely quoted as saying:
I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.
Lately my answer has become much simpler:
The right length for a quiet time is long enough to be unhurried.
Making time for what counts
An unhurried quiet time means there is:
Enough time to soak in God’s word.
Time to savour and meditate on it. Time to explore, to follow a cross-reference. Time to read slowly, to reflect and perhaps memorise some verses.
Enough time for God’s word to change us.
Scripture teaches, rebukes, corrects and trains us in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16-17). That kind of heart work rarely happens at high speed.
Enough time to enjoy our relationship with God.
A daily conversation with our King and Creator as he speaks to us in his word, and we respond to him in prayer. Where we delight in him, and see him more clearly. And he deepens our love for him.
How do I fit that into a busy life?
For me it means time in the morning before I leave the house. And - I’m sorry to say this - it means getting up earlier (and going to bed earlier), even in the darkness of winter.
I’ve worked out I need about an hour, so that I’m not checking the clock, and can enjoy time in God’s word and prayer.
It also means not trying to cram too much into that hour.
For example, I’ve realised that I can’t read four Bible chapters and still meditate deeply on the passage and pray. If I’m reading through the Bible in a year, I might listen to some chapters while walking or driving instead.
At the moment, I’m loving spending a couple of months in one book of the Bible. I’ve just finished Titus, reading a short passage each day alongside an accessible commentary (the God’s Word For You2 series is great for this!).
My rhythm is fairly simple:
Review the passage I’m memorising
Read the day’s passage
Explore cross-references and insights from the commentary
Finish by writing a prayer based on the passage.
The prayer usually includes a summary of the key teaching, praise and thanks to God for these truths, confession and asking for God’s help to become more like Christ.
I’ve noticed the praise section helpfully connects my head to my heart before I move into confession and application.
Photo by Jessica Mangano on Unsplash
What if I have less time?
There are days and seasons when I simply don’t have an hour.
On those days I still aim to be unhurried, even if the time is shorter. I might return to a familiar passage - Psalm 23 or Psalm 139 - or reflect again on the passage from the previous day.
That way I’m deepening my understanding rather than rushing through something new.
Years ago I heard Peter Adam suggest another helpful practice: spending a couple of hours once a week studying a passage in depth, then slowly unpacking it across the rest of the week. For people with little weekday time, this can be a great rhythm.
To finish
Years ago I read in Adam Maybry’s The Art of Rest that “rushing ruins relationships.” That’s true of our human relationships - and it’s also true of our relationship with God.
He goes on to say -
Deep fellowship with God and others can’t be microwaved. It takes time.3
When we rush our quiet times we skim read, tick the box and move on. But there’s little space for reflection, repentance, delight or real transformation.
Rushing is one of the key reasons our quiet times sometimes aren’t working.
So as you open the Bible and pray each day, perhaps the goal is not a particular number of minutes. Perhaps the goal is unhurried time with God.
And as we meditate carefully on his word, may we become like the person described in Psalm 1:
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers. (Psalm 1:3)
A.D. Hart, The Hidden Link Between Adrenaline and Stress (1995: W Publishing Group), p. 38.
Available from The Good Book Company.
Adam Maybry, The Art of Rest (2018: The Good Book Company), pp. 89-90.
I really appreciated your response "The right length for a quiet time is long enough to be unhurried." For me, it takes quite awhile until my mind slows down enough meditate, so I've learned to leave a lot of time to abide with the Lord. The theme of being unhurried as been popping up a lot for me lately (Samantha Decker's book, Unhurried has also been a huge help). But we often don't realize how rushed we are, until we slow down. Thanks for this!