Live Free with Josh Howerton - Hurry Sickness | Ep. 164 | Thursday, September 21, 2023

Episode Date: September 21, 2023

Do you have “hurry sickness”? Are you tempted to value time over people? When we do that, we actually miss out on what’s really important in life. Pastor Mike reminds us the value of pulling over, popping the hood, and changing lanes so you can find rest in God. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's Word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. Church slash daily drive. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, thanks for joining us on the Daily Drive. So good to hang with you for a few minutes today. My name is Mike, and wherever you're listening from, so thankful that you have tuned in. Hey, we've been talking about prayer this entire week and as we come to the close of our 21 days of encountering God.

I want to talk about one of the greatest enemies of our growth as people. It's a very real thing that has been even clinically labeled now as hurry sickness. Think you might have it? Let me throw off some symptoms by asking you some questions. Are you in a constant state of worry and stress? Do you live like everything is urgent? Are you always available? Got to take every call, your text alert goes off, and you're like Pavlov's dog.

You can't live without your phone or your watch or your watch slash phone. Do you hate wasting time, even when you should be? Do you find it hard to relax? Do you hate waiting in line, whether it be traffic or airport security or the grocery store? Do you do that if that other person in an other line was me? I'd be done right now. Dang it, I chose the wrong line. Does your family eat most meals in the minivan

in the parking lot of a sports complex? Till you walk super fast, wherever you're going. Do you talk super fast, dominating every conversation? Do you drive super fast? When that big flashing arrow says merge right, do you pass by everybody and cut in line? Are you that guy? Seems like we're all moving at the speed of life

and we can't keep up. And we can't shut it down. Even when we try to rest at night, all the noise clutters are mine, Our bodies may lie down, but our mind doesn't rest. Solomon writing up his own frustration nailed our culture thousands of years ago and wrote this in his journal called Ecclesiastes. So what do people get in this life for all their hard work and anxiety?

Their days of labor are filled with pain and grief. Even at night, their minds cannot rest. It's all meaningless. I mean, honestly, how many of you are going like 100 miles an hour with a decibel level cranked up over 100 as well? I mean, the noise and the pace is doing a number on your soul. You may even be with your family, cuddle up on the couch, and you still can't shut it down. Your mind is filled with all the noise of cable news, social media posts,

endless to-do lists, and your soul rarely finds deep rest. Man, I've been there. So let me quickly give you three observations. Probably don't need to tell you these. But when you and I live this way, the first thing we do, we miss out. We miss out. Life is a series of moments of moving at the speed of life. We miss out on moments.

Everything becomes a blur, including God. And when I do slow down to pray, connect, and listen to him, I always ask, man, that was so good. Why don't I do that more often? And the answer usually comes back because you're moving way too fast. That's been my experience. I mean, hurry is a soul wrecker and a family wrecker. And it's been my experience that moving at the speed of life, not only do we miss out,

but we pass by. We're moving so fast and so loud that we can't hear God. And we just don't see the opportunity to do good all around me. and if we do see them, it's way off on our peripheral vision along with like a million other things. We get moving so fast that our time becomes more important than people. I'll never forget a moment a couple of years ago when God convicted me about my hurry sickness. I was in a big hurry.

Due to my own procrastination, late for a meeting, I was that guy in traffic, swerving, maneuvering lane to lane, trying to make it to my meeting when all of a sudden traffic stopped for a long funeral procession. And my immediate reaction, just being honest, and my immediate reaction, just being honest, was, oh, are you kidding me? This is going to take forever. And within seconds, I felt the Spirit speak deep to deep to me, saying, bro, are you kidding me? This procession can't go slow enough for the people grieving on the way to that cemetery. And you're stressing out about your meeting? I felt so convicted, and sat there in traffic and began to pray for the people in that procession.

I drove the speed limit the rest of the way, no one is okay, that I was a little late. Dallas Willer gave such great advice when he wrote these words, we must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from our lives. We must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from our lives. You see, the problem with hurry is that hurry is not just a disordered schedule. Hurry is a disordered heart. And when you have a disordered heart, you have a diminished capacity to love, because love and hurry are simply incompatible.

Love always takes time, and time is the one thing that hurry sick people just don't have. So moving at the speed of life, we miss out, we pass by, and eventually we crash into. There's no secret by now that research shows that the number one killer of Americans is stress. I mean, hurry fuels all kinds of emotional and physical breakdowns. That's why John Morecomber put it this way, said, hurry is violence on the soul. It just is. So what do we need to do?

How can we cure our hurry sickness, find rest for our soul, and begin to flourish in the way that God wants us to every day? Instead of missing out and passing by and crashing into, we got to do these three things. Got to pull over, pop the hood, and change lanes. Pull over, pop the hood, and change lanes. I almost said instead of pull over, slow down. But from my own experience, I know it's got to be more radical than that. When the noise is clambering and the pace is accelerating, you just can't gear it down. You got to pull over and stop.

Now, I know that sometimes circumstances increase the complexity of life, and where we live can accentuate the pace. But generally, pace is what you make it, based on decisions that you make. I mean, you can move your body to a new slower location, but your hurried soul is going to come with you. You see, your pace doesn't have as much to do with your external environment as it does with the internal environment.

Pace flows from a restless soul. So where do we find rest for our souls? And what I'm going to tell you, I know it's going to sound like a preacher answer, but I want you to know from my own experience, as an ordinary guy who used to suffer from hurry sickness, that there is only one place you're going to find real rest for your soul, and that's in God. Our souls find rest in him alone.

David put it this way in Psalm 62, verse 1. Truly my soul finds rest in God. My salvation comes from him, truly. He is my rock and my salvation. He is my fortress. I will never be shaken. He's saying, my anxious, shaky, can't shut it down, a restless soul.

only finds rest and the unshakable God. There was a guy named Paul who wrote a letter called Romans to a bunch of Jesus followers who were living in a very loud and fast, hurry-sick culture. He said, don't let the world around you squeeze you into its mold. Don't let the pace of this world determine your pace. Let the Holy Spirit who wants to develop all kinds of great, soulless stuff like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,

gentle, faithful, self-control, let him set your pace. Let him help you make your schedule. Ask him to help you determine your priorities. You pull over, you pop the hood and pray, search me, oh God. What's making me so hurry sick? Why can't I shut it down? When you invite me to be still, why can't I? When you invite me to know you, why don't I? Why am I running so fast to prove myself? What makes me work such long hours? What's driving all of this? What's it doing to my family? You pull over, you pop the hood, and then you change lanes. I have a buddy in Kentucky that always says, if nothing changes, nothing changes.

That's a wise dude right there. I'm telling you, you got to get intentional about this. You got to pull over it, turn off the motor, shut off the noise, pop the hood, and intentionally change lanes where you can ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life. So I would suggest that you take a day very soon. Take a sick day if you need to because the truth is,

if you can't pull over and shut off your engine, You are sick. So turn down the noise, turn off the cell phone, be unavailable for an entire day. Shut off the laptop, don't check email, fast from social media, fast from noise, fast food and drive-thrus, withdraw from the usual barrage of activities and information, turn off the TV, take off your watch, and just breathe deeply. Sleep, pray, meditate, listen, get by yourself because solitude is primarily about not doing something. that's your homework assignment.

Block out some time real soon, arrange a whole day around listening to God, and hear the lover of your soul say, pull over, come to me, all of you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,

for I am gentle and humble and heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. So why don't we take Jesus up on that invitation today and be still and know him? Hope you have a great day. And I'll see you back next time. Thanks for tuning in today.

For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out. For more information about all digital ministries of Lake Point, visit lakepoint.compt.combe.combe. Church slash daily drive.