Dallas Willard once said, “hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life in our day.” I remember years ago listening to a podcast by Rob Bell, who talked about how we’ve lost the ability just to be bored. John Mark Comer argues that we must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from our lives. Every generation says this, but life isn’t the same as it used to be. Our weeks are filled with to-do lists, meetings, and appointments. We work forty-hour weeks (if you’re lucky), we try to eat right and stay healthy, go home, look after the kids, clean the house, go to church, try to catch up with that friend for coffee or lunch, meet your spouses needs, listen to that podcast, read that blog (the irony is not lost on me), catch up with the latest social media news, video, tweet, or reel. We study, try to improve our skill set, and bring work home with us (because there is rarely enough time to do your job in a 9-5), which is what it means to be a functioning human being in 2024.
In the 90s and early 2000s, I felt like imagination was king. Boredom drove me to creativity. I couldn’t mindlessly flick through reels of videos, watch people playing Fortnight, or throw on a podcast (all things I love, by the way). Instead, a rock or a piece of clay became a fossil. The front trees and gardens became hideouts for me to store waterbombs and hide from the other kids on the street. I used to write my name in Egyptian hieroglyphics (not very well, mind you). I used to spend time with my mum. We talked—a lot. I remember my first-ever coffee (a mocha with whipped cream on top) and trips to Wet n’ Wild. I remember going to my Nannas house on holidays and playing cricket in the street with my Dad. Going to the beach or doing road trips always seemed convenient and easy. Nowadays, travelling more than half an hour gets the best of you. It takes work to keep focused and your attention on things that should be important to you. Unconsciously, I reach for my phone to see if I have a notification. Switching off when friends talk about something that doesn’t matter to you is so easy. It’s easy to go to church for an hour and a half a week, passively take in a sermon, half-heartedly sing a few songs and “hurry God” like He is a fast food worker and McDonald’s or something. Most of us don’t know how to slow down, rest, be bored, and linger.
In six days, God created the universe, and on the seventh, He rested, or to put it another way, he lingered, hung around, and delighted in what he had made (Genesis 1-2). The definition of lingering is to stay in a place longer than is expected or usual. It is unusual in our day and age to linger, to stay in one place and enjoy it without distraction or a “productive purpose.” When was the last time you sat, meandered, or rested while just taking in the world around you? Have you ever sighed a breath of relief and just lingered on what you have already accomplished (no matter how seemingly insignificant)? When have you last just plodded around in the messiness of your space and just delighted in your stage of life? I love that God rests. He didn’t need to. God doesn’t have a cap on His capacity. He wasn’t taking the day off because he was tired. He rested and lingered and delighted in his creation because (I believe) He brought him joy.
Fast forward in the story, and in the Exodus, we have Israel enslaved and forced to work every day. They were the peak of productivity. Their worth was weighed in the bricks they made and the work they did. Israelite identity became so entrenched in their slavery that even when they had been freed, they longed to return to it (Exodus 16:3). What I find funny is that the Jews wanted to go back into slavery even while having God’s tangible presence with them in the wilderness (Exodus 13:21). Even after they got into the promised land, established a kingdom and a temple with God dwelling among his chosen people, they still worshipped other gods. Israel forgot to dwell with God and linger in his presence. Though God wasn’t far from any of them, they never stopped and experienced his presence in any intimate and authentic way. I wonder how different history might have been had Adan and Eve lingered with God in the Garden, if the Jews lingered with God in the wilderness, or dwelt with him more intimately in the temple. How different might things have been if the disciples lingered with Jesus? Rather than expecting things from him, they were just with him. Maybe they would have seen Jesus as the messiah he was instead of what they expected him to be.
And this is the problem. We expect God to be something or someone he doesn’t want to be. Just like the Jews, we have theological categories (some of which are helpful) that impose expectations of God into history. God heals. Therefore, whenever I pray, he heals. Except he doesn’t. God is in control. Therefore, everything must work according to his will, except life is chaotic and challenging, and it rarely feels like God is in control. God is love. Yet he often feels distant. God is wrathful. Yet evil always seems to prevail. These categories came to me through books and podcasts, not God himself (though, of course, these are things God can use). These things are true, but I don’t always know it.
In Celtic spirituality, thresholds are seen as a line between one space and the next, one time and another. I’m not just talking about the threshold between your bedroom and the hallway; I’m talking about the thin places in our lives that God whispers and beckons us through so that we may linger, refreshed, transformed, and made new. We may need to stop and linger more often.
Scribbling Theology 