Slow It Down

He lets me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside quiet waters. —Psalm 23:2

Have you ever noticed that Jesus never seemed to be in a hurry? We never see Him hustling from place to place or doubling up His schedule after running behind. We never see Him running, for that matter. But we do see Him walking. We see Him seated by a well in Samaria and sitting down to teach His disciples. We read of Him reclining at meals and sleeping in the hull of a storm-tossed boat.

When you think about it, hurry is simply not Christ-like. And often, hurry is the enemy of spiritual intimacy. It’s a pace of life seldom conducive to godliness, to relationships, to marriage, to anything that ultimately matters to us.

So, it’s not surprising to learn the Lord would want to lead us to “green pastures” and “quiet waters.” Left to ourselves, we’ll just keep going until we fall from exhaustion. And yet the more hurried our pace, the less we will truly experience our Shepherd. Intimacy with God (and with others) requires time, stillness, waiting, and focused attention.

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The Quiet Place: Daily Devotional Readings

©2012 Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Scripture taken from The CSB