There is nothing like being convicted

Conviction has a weird way of coming and going.  Conviction is not universal.  It doesn't even happen every time that something that comes up.  You can be perfectly fine with something on Sunday, but convicted on Monday or vice versa. Tonight I was convicted.  Though I don't know whether my conviction is in regard to a sin or not, I guess it depends on whether you would call it a sin.

I am herby repenting of "hurry."  I had this same feeling a couple weeks ago (see here), but tonight's conviction was worse.

I have succumb to the idolatry of hurry.  I call it idolatry for lack of a better term.  The symbol could be a watch or something (we already have them in gold, so it would save us the time of making one: dang it I did it again).  Sure others might have it worse, or struggled with this type of idolatry longer, but I have now made a life of it.

We talked about hurry tonight at youth group.  John Ortberg in his book The Life You've Always Wanted says this: "Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day."  If there is one group that struggles with it more without noticing it, I think it is High School Students.  Trying to balance a social life (both friends and more-than-friends); athletics; work; family; and school; their life can turn into post-it-note calendars and be reduced to reheated meals.  Without noticing, my life had turned into this mockery, where I bowed to nothing but my calendar.  24 hours in a day just wasn't enough.  

My biggest problem was this: I didn't realize what it was doing to my relationship with God.  

After reading through some of Luke, I saw two stories back-to-back that can explain the effects of hurry.  In Luke 10.30ff. Jesus tells the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  I wonder about the Priest and the Levite.  Did they pass by because they were on their way somewhere and didn't want to be bothered?  Did they pass by to protect themselves?  Why did these men skip this guy?  It doesn't really matter, I guess.  They skipped him because to stop would have been to waste time.  They had better things to be doing.  The Samaritan; however, apparently had time to kill.  He came to the man (33); bandaged him up (34); poured oil and wine on his wounds (34); took him to an inn (34); apparently spent the night with him; came back the next day (35); and apparently came back one more time to see him because he said he would (35).  Serious time invested in this guy for no better than he new him.  I'd say he pretty much cleared his schedule to be with this guy.  Ortberg says: "Love and hurry are fundamentally incompatible. Love always takes time, and time is one thing hurried people don't have."  When you look at Jesus in the book of Luke, he is constantly interrupted by people.  I am not sure, but I can't think of a single time Jesus hurried.  Not once did he not have time for people, or rush through something.  Everything seemed to happen at his pace.

If the Samaritan had been me, my agenda would have come first, and that guy would still be lying there.  Hurry gets in the way of us loving people.

Second thing hurry does: takes our focus off of God.  The never next story is about Martha and Mary.  Martha is distracted by all the preparations that had to be made (40), but Mary is was sitting at Jesus feet (39).  A person hurrying is a person missing the presence of God.  Hurry makes us buzz through the blessings of God.  Hurry makes us miss the work of God.  Hurry preoccupies us from seeing God's movement, feeling God's heartbeat, and hearing God's words.

2 stories with remarkably similar people: some who were too hurried to see God and his work; some who sat aside their own agenda for his sake.

Sadly enough, I know which one(s) I am in these stories.  But in the words of Dan Aykroyd's character in Tommy Boy: "The first step is identifying it the second is washing it off."