We all have the same 24 hours in every single day.

That’s what I read in a lot of books and articles on productivity.
And I’ve let it drive me not motivate me.

At the heart of that statement is our fear of failure and our constant urge to measure ourselves against others. As though what somebody else does has any bearing at all on my life, my path.  Seriously, it’s absurd and destructive.

The little clock pictured above is a travel souvenir.  I’ve loved it well, but it began slowing down.  It kept time erratically until one day it decided to be something other than a clock.  Lately it’s become a reminder “That life is so urgent it necessitates living slow”.  That’s a quote from Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts, a book I can’t stop reading.

In a beautiful chapter called A Sanctuary of Time she pleads the case against hurry.
It’s a chronic condition for some of us.  A wasting disease that strips us of vitality and joy leaving us frustrated, irritable, and dissatisfied with life.  In our rush to fit more into every minute and hour, we lose the ability to simply be in any single moment.  In trying to stretch our time we lose it altogether.  Like the bubbles we blew with our little pink rectangle of Bazooka—we’ve over-reached and all the breath seeped out through the spot that could stretch no further.

The solution is to quit being amateurs. 

“On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgment and efforts to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur.”

That’s from a wise woman named Evelyn Underhill who Voskamp quotes.  What an encouraging challenge that is to me at the beginning of a new year.

What will it take to quit living like an amateur? Hurrying from one thing to another, living life in a  mindless blur of activity.   I’m craving guidance from God and the clarity that comes from time spent with Him.  In my ‘mother years’ I didn’t think, I just did.  Now without those constant demands I can be easily diverted.  Lots of beginnings and fewer completions.

I want to savor the life God has given me, but I want to live it well.
To do the things that should be done in this—my life.  To work, to love, to share, to create, to give thanks, to worship God and seek Him with earnest focus.

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.  Eccles. 3:1