The Problem with Hurrying

In our town there is one traffic light.  It is not one of these fancy ones that gives instructions to different lanes of traffic, but one that flashes red on one side and yellow on the other.   There are two traffic jams each day at this intersection with the flashing light.  One comes in the morning as hordes of teenagers descend on the nearby high school and the other comes in mid afternoon when the school day comes to an end.  However, even then it is not a major traffic event.  In fifteen or twenty minutes traffic settles back into its normal slow unhurried pace.

 

Life is different in this small rural town of 900 than it is in the larger metropolitan areas not so far away.  Every time I drive into the city on its multi lane roads that move thousands of cars rather than a dozen or so, I am grateful for life in the country.  Of course, I remember the large portions of my working years which were spent inside the beltway of larger cities.  I remember the years when I was a part of the hurrying to get somewhere a little faster than the previous day.  But, even in a caution light rural town, folks can create their own fast lane as they get caught up in their hurrying.

 

When I read the gospels, the one thing I never really catch Jesus doing is hurrying.  Certainly, He did not just aimlessly meander around the countryside.  Wherever He went, there was a sense of intentionality and urgency.  Getting wherever it was He was going never seemed to keep Him from paying attention to the people who were sharing the way with Him.  On His way to wherever He was going, He was always seeing the blind man, the lepers, and people who did outrageous things like climbing a tree to see Him.  He had time for the grieving widows and the children who were often pushed aside as bothersome.  His pace was fast enough to get Him to wherever; yet, slow enough to see what was right in front of Him.  The problem with hurrying is that we lose sight of where we are and Who is going with us.