REFLECTIONS

Go Slow·YouÊll Get There Quicker

By David Brandt Berg

I
n quietness and confidence shall be your strength experts have said that pressure and tension is kill-
(Isaiah 30:15, NKJ). There is nothing in the Bible ing people, and that many of today’s
promoting hurry. The only verse I can ever illnesses are either from pressure and
remember any preachers or anybody else tension, or improper diet. Pressure
using to try to make me rush was, The and speed are killing people
king’s business required haste (1 through heart trouble, nervous
Samuel 21:8, NKJ). But for that trouble, and high blood pressure.
one Scripture, I think there Lord help us to go slow! We
must be a hundred that tell us shouldn’t waste time, but we need
to go slow, or words to that ef- to trust the Lord instead of being
fect—even to take it easy! rushed and impatient. Patience
Jesus said, Come to Me, all indicates slowness, plodding
you who labor and are heavy along, doing our work persis-
laden, and I will give you rest. tently and not wasting time,
Take My yoke upon you and but also not getting fretful and
learn from Me, for I am gentle worried and all worked up
and lowly in heart, and you about it. Impatience is
will find rest for your souls. For marked by speed, hurry, rush,
My yoke is easy and My bur- haste, push, pressure, ten-
den is light (Matthew 11:28- sion! Patience shows faith.
30, NKJ). When you get under Impatience shows lack of
too much pressure and too faith. Impatience shows that we
much tension, too heavy a bur- don’t think the job is going to get done
den and too hard a yoke, it’s not unless we hurry and push it and rush it.
God’s fault. It’s somebody else’s fault, or your own! But if we’ve got faith that Jesus is going to take
Maybe that’s why God created mules and don- care of it somehow, we can afford to be patient and
keys—as a good lesson. They are plodders; they are go slow and do it right.
very slow, but they have more endurance and can
carry heavier loads than horses. They are the “work- AP
Prrayer ffor
or Patienc
Pa e
tience
horses” of the backwoods. They can negotiate trails
that horses would kill themselves on, carrying loads
God, teach me to be patient;
for miles that a horse couldn’t, especially not a race-
Teach me to go slow.
horse.
Teach me how to wait on You
Racehorses can spurt for a few rounds around
When my way I do not know.
the track, and that’s it! They’re extremely high-
Teach me sweet forbearance
strung, nervous, and are just not workhorses.
When things do not go right,
They’re not plodders, they’re not load carriers. But
So I remain unruffled
pack mules and donkeys are—and they’re as stub-
When others grow uptight.
born as they come! You cannot rush them. You have
Teach me how to quiet
to do it slowly, in their time. They just plod along,
My racing, rising heart,
but they do it and they get there. It’s like the old story
So I may hear the answer
of the tortoise and the hare: The tortoise was slow
You are trying to impart.
but he got there!
Teach me to let go, dear God,
You can have the emotion and you can have the
And pray undisturbed until
speed; I’ll take the low road and the slow road. You
My heart is filled with inner peace
can take the high road and get there first if you want
And I learn to know Your will!
to—if you get there at all—but I’m going to take the
—Helen Steiner Rice
low road and the slow road, and I’m determined to
get there in one piece, no matter how long it takes.
I can’t count the times I’ve told taxi drivers, “Go
slow and you live longer. Live fast and you’ll die
quicker.” That certainly is true. Doctors and health
R88 GP Stress. Patience. Go Slow.