Experiment 3: Embrace interruptions.
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Note: An edited version of this piece was originally featured at Christian Parenting here.
Last December, I realized something had to change. Perhaps it was feeling pain grip my chest in the midst of holding a crying, thirty-pound toddler, whisking a pot of spaghetti sauce, mentally replying to text messages, and trying to catch words from a podcast all at the same time. My weary body and mind and spirit were whispering that the continually fast-paced rhythm of my life was not only harming myself and my relationships: it was harming my son. In my efforts to do more and more, faster and faster, I was modeling a rushed rhythm of life for the next generation.
Jesus and the unrushed life
As a mother, I bear the beautiful burden of being Jesus to my son, of embodying divine love in my words and movements. Contemplating the Jesus of the Gospels, I am learning how Jesus modeled an unrushed, Spirit-paced life. Jesus’ whole life was a slow-moving process. Instead of appearing as a full-grown man on earth, Jesus submitted to being born through a peasant woman’s body, to the unsteadiness of toddler feet, to the hormonal tempest of adolescence. He walked through the process of being fully human, in slow steps, year by year (Hebrews 4:15).
And as an adult, Jesus did not rush; He walked (most often, literally) the steps God had for Him each day, doing no more and no less than the Father asked of Him (John 8:29). To Martha’s frustration, Jesus intentionally delayed a visit to Lazarus, arriving too late to heal His beloved friend–but just in time to resurrect him from the dead (John 11: 1–44). And when wind-churned waves threatened to engulf His fishing boat, Jesus (asleep in the rocking waters) was in no rush to calm the storm (Matthew 8:23–27).
Photo Credit: John Towner on Unsplash
Lately, the story that has been deeply challenging my patterns of rushing is when Jesus agreed to heal Jairus’ dying twelve-year-old daughter. While walking back to Jairus’ home amidst a jostling crowd, Jesus felt a tug on His clothing. And stopped everything (Mark 5:30).
Fully knowing Jairus’ anxiety, fully knowing the interruption would prevent them from making it to the girl’s bedside before she died, fully knowing He was already in the middle of the most urgent of missions–saving a dying child–Jesus paused.
Profoundly sensitive to the suffering of others, Jesus sought out the woman who had tugged on His hem, the woman He had just healed of twelve years of bleeding. He took the time to look her in the eye and call her “daughter” (Mark 5:34 ESV).
Walking in the Spirit’s rhythm
Moving in step with the Spirit, Jesus was not in too much of a hurry to be interrupted. He was not in too much of a hurry to be compassionate towards the suffering. He moved at a pace that allowed Him to feel the anguish of others, to peer into the faces of the broken-hearted, to stop for a conversation, to offer a word, a piece of bread, a healing.
How many times am I in the middle of doing something good and important (baking a casserole for a new mom, hacking at that mountain of laundry), that I don’t heed the annoying, often literal tug at my hem and attend to the need right before me?
So often in my rush to pursue my own agenda, I am blinded to the needs of neighbors, friends, family–and particularly the weak, vulnerable soul right next to me: my son. When I am rushing, I am more apt to be hard-hearted towards his tears and sometimes even physically harm him by bumping into his tottering body. But when I walk at Jesus’ pace, I am more attentive to my son’s needs, more gentle and compassionate.
When I carefully lace my son’s red boots instead of rushing to furnish his feet as fast as I can, I communicate the tender love of Jesus.
While Jesus was still speaking with the now-healed woman, a messenger told Jairus, “Your daughter is dead” (Mark 5:35). But Jesus was utterly unflustered: this was all part of the plan. When He entered the darkened room of Jairus’ dead daughter, He tenderly held the little girl’s hand and told her to rise up. She awakened, hungry.
Photo Credit: HolgersFotographie On Pixabay
Because Jesus did not rush, but walked in the Spirit’s rhythm, a miracle unfolded before an ordinary family in an ordinary room. I wonder what gifts God has tucked into the folds of each day for those that walk at his pace. Who aren’t afraid to do less (or, what can feel more important, appear to do less in others’ eyes). Who choose to obey the Spirit’s voice and entrust the results of their obedience to God.
Walking by the Spirit not only leads me into compassionate attention to my family’s needs, it also opens me to delight. Jesus could have kept walking, knowing the bleeding woman had been healed. But He wanted to take the time to meet her. Jesus’s love is so deep He doesn’t just want to do things for us; He delights in us.
When I take time to bathe my son, I am more apt to wind up his little green turtle and giggle with him as it paddles through the tub. I am more apt to simply enjoy the gift of being with him.
More profoundly, walking at a Spirit-led pace leads me deeper into intimacy with Jesus. I learn to hear the timbre of His voice (Isaiah 30:21), know the nudging of His staff. I learn to trust that good and gentle Shepherd (Psalm 23). Ultimately, modeling Jesus-paced rhythms is not about fast and slow. It’s about embodying the love of Jesus to the next generation, so that they would love Him, too.
This blog is part of the “Experiments in Inefficiency” series, which explores what it means to resist unbiblical cultural and personal pressures to produce in favor of Jesus’ easy yoke.
