"Rush Is Never Right"

In Richard Foster's book The Celebration Of Discipline, he begins one of the chapters regarding meditation with a quote from Carl Jung that says, "Hurry is not of the devil; it is the devil."  That quote struck me when I first opened the book years ago. But as with most books, I left The Celebration Of Discipline half finished. I picked it up again recently only to be struck by that quote once again. But I think things hit you differently in different seasons.  In this season, where I'm more rooted in my 'work' than I've probably ever been, I realized how much I've developed an attitude of rushing in every area of my life. I've become incredibly goal-oriented. Whether that's finishing the last drop of my coffee or mobilizing a certain number of missionaries onto the field. Being goal-oriented is good, but if you leave out the value of the process, so many things are devalued and lost. Rushing and hurrying and keeping my eyes on the goal has caused me to put blinders on and disregard everyone and everything but my goal, whether that's washing the dishes or sitting down to tea with a friend, checking my watch or allowing my mind to race with everything I have to do. How awful! And I wonder how much it shows, when all someone wants is my time, that I'm thinking about how much time is being wasted in that moment. Ugh. It makes me feel a little sick. I've started asking myself what my life might look like if I began to adopt the mentality that I have all the time in the world. Imagine what could actually get done, relationally! Slow, steady conversations, true listening, true relating. Slowness is the foundation of so many meaningful and beautiful things. Relating this back to Jesus, my thought process was this: if Jesus walked--loving, healing, relating--then everything Satan would want from us would be sprinting--eyes focused on the end goal, disregarding and shoving aside everything along the way with the delusion "it's all about God". God is outside of time. Why would he rush? To what end? He is, by nature, process.