Slowing Down

Series: The Lord is My Shepherd (Psalm 23)

Leslie Basham: To really get to know someone, you need to spend unhurried time together, including God. Here’s Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: “We walk fast, talk fast, eat fast, and then announce, ‘Sorry, I’ve got to run.’ The trouble is, God’s not running after us. He knows that speed does not yield devotion.”

Leslie Basham: It’s Monday, May 22nd, and you’re listening to Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Last week Nancy began a series on one of the most well known passages in the Bible. Even though we’ve heard Psalm 23, most of us get caught up in this fast-paced world and don’t live Psalm 23. Here’s Nancy.

Nancy: I read a book recently that has been a great encouragement and practical help to me. I’ll tell you the title. You may know why I read it. It’s called The Overload Syndrome. It’s by Richard Swenson.

He uses phrases in that book where he talks about our “chronic activity overload,” the “unprecedented stress epidemic” we’re in. He says, “Most of America is in a hyperstress environment.”

I picked this book up at a time in my life when I was feeling like I was experiencing overload syndrome. It was also while I was meditating on Psalm 23. And while Swenson’s book was a blessing and a help, I have to say that nothing has done for me what Psalm 23 has done for my "stress epidemic" and "chronic activity overload."

But in his book Swenson has a chapter called “Hurry and Fatigue.” I’m going to read to you just some of what he says.

He begins by quoting a journalist named Peg Zaemisch who says, “America. The land of the rushed. We have proudly defined our American lifestyle as ‘life in the fast lane.’ Now, we rush to construct passing lanes, so we can get around those pokie-schmokies in the fast lane . . . do they think we’ve got all day? We’ve become a country of out-of-breath-red-faced folks, racing around with our hair permanently blowing back.”

Swenson goes on to say, “Even our sentences are peppered with such words as time crunch, fast food, rush hour, frequent flyer, expressway, overnight delivery , and rapid transit. The products and services further attest to our hurry: We send packages by Federal Express, use a long distance company called Sprint, manage our personal finances on Quicken, schedule our appointments on a DayRunner, diet with SlimFast, and swim in trunks made by Speedo. . . . plagued by this hurry sickness . . . We live in a nanosecond culture, wheezing and worn-out. . . .

“When speed and business have matured, they give birth to fatigue. Americans are, if anything, exhausted. We are a nation of the hard-wired and dog-tired.”

Well, I think of those quotes as we come to verse 2 of Psalm 23. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” (verse 1). And then verse 2, “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.”

The literal rendering of that phrase is, “He leads me beside waters of rest.” I like that—waters of rest. “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside waters of rest.”

That doesn’t sound like that hectic, harried, frantic, pell-mell culture we were just reading about, does it? I think this verse is speaking of God giving to His sheep rest and refreshment.

And He leads me there not just one time, but regularly. I have to keep coming back to those green pastures and back to those still waters.

Now, as we’ll see in the rest of Psalm 23, we don’t always live in green pastures and by still waters. So we need to keep following His leading back to those places of rest and refreshment.

Before sheep can be productive, for wool or for meat, they have to be healthy; they have to be mature; they have to be well-developed. But our problem is that we tend to put productivity first.

The Lord is my shepherd. He gives me lots of work to do: a family to take care of, a class to teach, work to do at my church, people to win to Christ. He makes me a good wife. He makes me a good mother. He helps me get my work done.

That’s not what this psalm says. “The Lord is my shepherd.” First, He makes me lie down in green pastures, and He leads me beside still waters. Why? So we can get nourished, so we can get nurtured, so we can get food and drink, and so we can have something to offer others.

Some of us are spiritually malnourished. I meet a lot of women that it’s just written all over their face. It’s in their tone. It’s in that panic-stricken look in their eyes.

All too often I see it when I look at myself in the mirror. Spiritually malnourished—we’re trying to be productive; we’re trying to meet everyone else’s needs, but we’re falling apart.

We don’t have time for meaningful conversations with people, including God. Just always rushing, always running.

You see, people in our culture are impressed by busyness. It just sounds kind of lazy and unproductive today to talk about lying down in green pastures, hanging out by still waters.

Swenson says in his book The Overload Syndrome, “I have thought long and hard about the issue of speed and have come to believe that it is as much responsible for the problem of personal and societal dysfunction as any other single factor. Virtually all of our relationships are damaged by hurry.”

Think about that. “We walk fast, talk fast, eat fast, and then announce, ‘Sorry, I’ve got to run.’ The trouble is, God’s not running after us. He knows that speed does not yield devotion.”

He says, “I think I would not be far wrong if I were to postulate [say] that our sense of the presence of God is in inverse proportion to the pace of our lives.”

Did you get that? Our relationship with God, our sense of God’s presence, is in opposite proportion to the pace of our lives. The more hurried our pace, the less intimate will be our sense of God’s presence.

Hurry. It’s the enemy of spiritual intimacy. It’s the enemy of intimacy in your marriage, too, or in any other relationships.

Have you ever noticed in the Gospels that Jesus never seemed to be in a hurry? You never read about Him running. We do read about Him walking. We read about Him sitting: sitting at the well in Samaria, sitting down to teach His disciples.

We read about Him reclining at meals. It’s a whole lot different from the way I eat most meals. You know, the single lifestyle—you’re standing in the kitchen just grabbing it on the run or driving through a drive-through.

You read about Jesus reclining at meals. You even read about Him sleeping in the boat with the storm raging around and the terrified disciples.

Hurry just is not conducive to godliness. It’s not Christ-like. It’s not conducive to healthy relationships. It’s not conducive to spiritual growth. Godliness and intimacy with God are not cultivated on the run. They require time, meditation, focused attention.

We don’t sing that old hymn often enough today: “Take time to be holy, the world rushes on; spend much time in secret with Jesus alone.”

Those constant interruptions and distractions are not a blessing, either, when it comes to intimacy with God. Constant cell phones, e-mail, pagers beeping, always having to be on call for everything. We have more means of access to us today. It’s not healthy.

Now those things—I’m not saying they’re sinful. I’m not saying they’re wrong. But I’m saying those things can control our lives, and I guess I know what I’m talking about because this is something I wrestle with a lot in my work.

Being under the dominion and control of all these things making noise and clamoring for my attention, and not taking the time to be still, to be quiet, to listen to God. In fact, sometimes I find my heartbeat just going so fast, my adrenaline running so high, my pace just so fast that when I do sit still I can hardly stand it.

There’s something wrong with that, with living in the red, with a high RPM all the time. It’s not healthy for our bodies, and that’s why we have so much heartburn and a lot of those issues. It’s not healthy; it’s not the way God created us to live.

The problem with sheep, and the problem with people, is that they don’t know when to rest. They just keep going until they fall down with exhaustion. That’s why the Good Shepherd makes them lie down in green pastures.

When does your soul get rested? When does your spirit get fed? I’m going to tell you what, if it’s not first thing in your life and first thing in your day and first thing on your “to-do” list, then you will end up frazzled and frustrated and frantic all your life.

I’m telling you, some of us are going to look back at the end of life, and we’re going to say, “I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off! But what did I accomplish? Do I even know God? Do I know my family? Do I have any close friends? Have I really loved people?”

We have to be taking time in green pastures, taking time beside those waters of rest. If you and I don’t sit at the feet of Jesus at times and just listen to Him speak as Mary did there in her home, then we will end up like Martha: frantic, running around, barking out orders, mad at the world, mad at God. “Lord, tell my sister to come in and help me!” (see Luke 10:38-42).

I’m irritated. I’m frustrated. We’ve all been there. It’s because we don’t take time.

Now, you can’t spend every waking moment of your life sitting at the feet of Jesus. There are meals to prepare. And there wasn’t anything wrong with Martha being in the kitchen. The problem was, she was trying to be productive without having been to the green pastures and the waters of rest.

I quoted in the last session from George Mueller, the man who cared for all the orphans. I’m just amazed at this man’s life and the peace and the spirit of rest that he seemed to have, even in the midst of huge responsibilities and demands placed upon him for the ministry he had there in England.

He said in his autobiography, “Above all things see to it that your souls are happy in the Lord. Other things may press upon you, the Lord’s work may even have urgent claims upon your attention, but I deliberately repeat, it is of supreme and paramount importance that you should seek above all things to have your souls truly happy in God Himself!

"Day by day seek to make this the most important business of your life. This has been my firm and settled condition for the last thirty-five years. For the first four years after my conversion I knew not its vast importance, but now after much experience I specially commend this point to the notice of my younger [brothers] and sisters in Christ: the secret of all true [effective] service [as a wife, as a mom, as a co-worker, whatever your responsibilities] is joy in God, having experimental [experiential] acquaintance and fellowship with God Himself.”

How do you get that? Well, that’s what we’ll talk about in the next session. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.”

Leslie Basham: That’s Nancy Leigh DeMoss encouraging us to head for some green pastures and still waters. If this idea of slowing down sounds really foreign, you might not even know where to start.

One idea is to spend 30 days in the Psalms. Nancy has a workbook that will lead you through one psalm per day. She’ll ask some questions to help you dig into the passage, and you’ll be able to apply it to your unique situation.

The workbook is called A 30-Day Walk with God in the Psalms. We’ll send it to you for a donation of $15 or more. You can donate and order online at www. ReviveOurHearts.com, and you’ll find a lot of helpful content on the site as well, including a transcript of today’s program.

If you’d like to speak with someone, you can call us at 800-569-5959. Be sure to ask for A 30-Day Walk with God in the Psalms when you make a donation of $15 or more.

You’ve heard the phrase, “I need a vacation from my vacation.” Everybody is searching for rest, but the search will always be exhausting unless God leads us. We’ll hear more about that tomorrow. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.

All Scripture is from the English Standard Version of the Bible.

George Mueller. Autobiography of George Mueller. Westminster Literature Resources. Denton, TX, 2003.

Richard Swenson. The Overload Syndrome: Learning to Live Within Your Limits. NavPress. Colorado Springs, CO, 1998.

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