Troy P Zehnder

I was driving home from work the other day doing about 70 miles per hour in a 65-mile-per-hour zone. That’s actually faster than I normally drive. Yet people were flying past me like I was standing still. As one car after another raced by, weaving in and out of traffic, I found myself wondering:

What’s the hurry?

Maybe they were late for work. Maybe they were rushing home. Maybe they had somewhere important to be. Or maybe they were just doing what so many of us do every day, rushing because we’ve become accustomed to rushing.

We hurry to work. We hurry home. We hurry through meals. We hurry through conversations. We hurry through relationships. We hurry through life. And the strange thing is that while we’re rushing to get to the next thing, we often complain about how quickly life is passing us by.

Think about that for a moment. People often say, “I can’t believe it’s already June.” Or, “I can’t believe the kids are grown.” Or, “Where did the last ten years go?”

Yet every day we race through the moments that eventually become our memories. Years ago, I was involved in a serious car accident. One of the things an accident teaches you is that everything can change in a split second. Suddenly, getting somewhere two minutes faster doesn’t seem nearly as important as getting there safely.

Life has a way of teaching us what really matters. The older I get, the more I realize that most of the things we rush toward aren’t nearly as important as the moments we’re rushing through. The conversation with a friend. The phone call from a parent. The evening walk with a dog. The quiet dinner. The sunset.

The ordinary moments are often the moments we miss because we’re already thinking about what’s next. Our culture encourages speed. Faster internet. Faster food. Faster shipping. Faster results. Instant gratification has become the expectation. But some of the best things in life refuse to be rushed.

Trust takes time. Wisdom takes time. Healing takes time. Friendship takes time. Love takes time. Faith takes time. You cannot microwave maturity. You cannot overnight meaningful relationships. You cannot rush God’s timing.

The Bible repeatedly reminds us about the importance of waiting. Abraham waited. Joseph waited. David waited. The disciples waited. Time and again, God worked through seasons that must have felt painfully slow to the people living through them.

Yet those waiting seasons often became the most important parts of their story. Perhaps that is because God is usually more interested in who we are becoming than how quickly we arrive. Maybe that’s true for us as well.

Maybe the destination isn’t the only thing that matters. Maybe the journey matters too. So the next time someone flies past me doing twenty miles over the speed limit, I’ll probably ask the same question: What’s the hurry?

Because life already moves fast enough. Maybe the real challenge isn’t getting somewhere faster. Maybe it’s learning to appreciate where we are while we’re on the way.