Has slowing down and sheltering in place brought to mind that you may have been running too fast? Could God be using this odd time to call you back to him?
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit” – yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
– James 4:13-16
In Hong Kong – where Francis Chan’s parents grew up and where he now lives – it’s as if kids grow up on a treadmill, and everyone is always upping the speed, asking them to run faster and faster. By first grade, your algebra better be better than the other kids’ algebra. “If you run fast enough, you’ll get into that university where you can run really fast. If you graduate from there, you’re guaranteed a job where you can run so fast …” Francis says. At 60 and 70 years old, they’re still running.
Doesn’t sound that unusual to an American. We’re proud of hard work, and that’s good. But Psalm 46:10 says we’re supposed to be still and know that God is God. The verse seems to imply that running on the treadmill isn’t going to get us any closer to the lover of our souls.
But we were made for this relationship with him, and maybe this is what he’s reminding us as the pandemic has still slowed our average daily pace. Maybe this is an opportunity we had better not miss.
Don’t miss this video and the opportunity to heed God’s call to be still. It just might be the sanest thing you can do right now.
