Speed Bump In The Fast Lane
6am: alarm goes off. Teeth brushed, contacts in, running clothes on, shoes laced up, AirPods in. 60 minute run with a sermon or book playing, mind focused, listening and praying. Shower, dress, set up the desk and office space. A slew of emails, call, call, call, a hurried lunch, call, call, call, frantic dinner. Drive to local church to fellowship and share, or work on RV logistics, or work on marriageRV stuff. Check-in with hubby, a chapter from Deuteronomy, drooping eyes… 10pm: head hits the pillow. Rinse and repeat tomorrow.
Something deep inside, when I stop long enough to give myself time to reflect, is telling me this isn’t what God had in mind when we said “yes” to full time RVing and traveling the country to see re|engage ministries. We are absolutely LOVING all the people we’re privileged to meet and spend time with, loving the places we’re seeing, so enjoying living in the RV. But man, I am exhausted. My body, mind, and soul are tired.
A few months ago, Alex suggested our cadence might not be sustainable. We started talking through what might be more reasonable. More recently, a text from a good friend, Deb Mitchell, suddenly grabbed my attention…”you loved the book Garden City. That same author also wrote The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.” Sometimes God likes to emphasize what He’s teaching me through repetition! God’s timing is always so perfect. Ruthlessly eliminating hurry - what does that even entail or look like? I clicked the Audible app on my phone, found the book, downloaded it and boom - the next morning’s run was spoken for!
John Mark Comer, a former pastor of Bridgetown Church in Oregon, opens his book with a detailed peek into his past all-too-hurried, every-moment-spoken-for, slave-to-the-calendar, wrought-with-distraction lifestyle. Just listening to this description in his opening exhausted me, but how it brought into focus my eerily similar pace of life.
He pushes into our lifestyles that culture has helped shape - one of immediacy, an always on and available frame of mind that replies within moments to every text and email because that’s what’s expected, a keen focus on productivity and maximizing every hour of every day. When people ask how we are, John Mark Comer asks, “how often do we respond with the word ‘busy’?” That’s a problem - a problem we’ve created for ourselves.
But, there’s more. In addition to our jobs, our phones also contribute to our “busy-ness”. We tap, swipe and click our phones an average of 2,617 times a day 🤯 I’ve often wondered if a pie chart hologram hovered above our heads illuminating for the world where we spend our time, what would my pie chart reveal? While it would show time and energy spent on good, God-honoring things, it would also show mindless time spent scrolling on Facebook and Instagram and hours dedicated to knocking out a tirelessly long to do list of things that don’t really matter.
I am a follower, a disciple, of Christ…which should mean I follow Him and the example His life here on Earth was. While Jesus was on the move, visiting many, and traveling from place to place, everything He did had purpose and He was fully present with each person. The Scriptures never describe Him hurrying, rushing, or checking the sundial. He did, however, admonish the frenetic Martha who was too busy serving instead of resting in her Lord (Luke 10:38-42). Jesus eliminated distractions, prioritized time with His Father, and worked at the pace He was called to - He was on the Father’s clock, not the world’s.
So something in our new life on the road has got to give. What changes are we making to better align this marriageRV ministry and our pace with Jesus’ plan and will for it/us? We’re still figuring this out and I am slowly (get it??) learning that my husband’s slower pace is truly a gift during this season. We spent the first 4 months of full-time RVing doing this my way…we visited 12 re|engage ministries in 7 states at breakneck speed, attended two conferences, and somewhere in there both worked full time jobs 😅 😮💨 While we have truly LOVED each and every person we’ve met along the way and were fully present during our time together, we simply overbooked and overextended ourselves. Our heart was in the right place, but our execution was a miss.
I never stopped to pray and ask Jesus where He would have us go, what He would have us say ‘yes’ and ‘not right now’ to. We had become the Israelites in Deuteronomy 1:32-33: “you did not trust in the Lord your God, who went ahead of you on your journey…to search out places for you to camp and to show you the way you should go.”
For the foreseeable future, our goal is to slow things down, staying in any one place for 2-4 weeks, building in unhurried time to love on re|engage ministries in a given area and create margin for focused time together, to rest our souls and refill our cups, to play, to explore His creation, and to simply do what He calls us to…follow Him.
Our prayer is that this intentionally slower pace will create the needed margin to breathe and truly enjoy the gift that He has given us in marriageRV.
A small parting gift for reading this far - a little inspiration for you and me. A short clip from one of my favorite documentaries, Free Burma Rangers, about this very topic:
Written by Jen
Published December 6, 2023