A Hurry

"And when the funeral director and grave digger open up the back of the hearse and slide the coffin out,
in that stark moment of earth-finality,
a question once asked of a pastor haunts through the rows of headstones and I hear it sure again.

"What was the pastor's most profound regret in life?

"...'Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me.
I cannot think of a single advantage I've ever gained from being in a hurry.
But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands,
lie in the wake of all the rushing...
Through all that haste I thought I was making up time.
It turns out I was throwing it away.'"

"...Life is so urgent it necessitates living slow."

~more from Ann Voskamp's book One Thousand Gifts

One of my teachers once said, "If the devil can't get in front of you to slow you down, he'll get behind you and push you faster." 

"But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you,
for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; 
and indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. 
But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more; 
that you aspire to lead a quiet life, 
to mind your own business, 
and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, 
that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, 
and that you may lack nothing."

~1 Thessalonians 4:9-12