“And hurry is a form of violence on the soul.”

A thought by John Mark Comer from his book, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry (p. 47). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

Hurry really does hurt us.

John says, “Meyer Friedman—the cardiologist who rose to fame for theorizing that type A people who are chronically angry and in a hurry are more prone to heart attacks … was the one who originally coined the phrase hurry sickness after noticing that most of his at-risk cardiovascular patients displayed a harrying ‘sense of time urgency.’”

John then says, “Not to play armchair psychologist, but I’m pretty sure we all have hurry sickness.”  And he gives ten symptoms. (If you wish to know them all please buy his book)

Here are two of them:

The first one, “Irritability—You get mad, frustrated, or just annoyed way too easily. Little, normal things irk you. People have to tiptoe around your ongoing low-grade negativity, if not anger. Word of advice from a fellow eggshell-expert: to self-diagnose don’t look at how you treat a colleague or neighbor; look at how you treat those closest to you: your spouse, children, roommate, etc.”

And the last one, “Isolation—You feel disconnected from God, others, and your own soul. On those rare times when you actually stop to pray (and by pray I don’t mean ask God for stuff; I mean sit with God in the quiet), you’re so stressed and distracted that your mind can’t settle down long enough to enjoy the Father’s company. Same with your friends: when you’re with them, you’re also with your phone or a million miles away in your mind, running down the to-do list. And even when you’re alone, you come face to face with the void that is your soul and immediately run back to the familiar groove of busyness and digital distraction.”

John later says, “Hurry kills relationships. Love takes time; hurry doesn’t have it.

“It kills joy, gratitude, appreciation; people in a rush don’t have time to enter the goodness of the moment.

“It kills wisdom; wisdom is born in the quiet, the slow. Wisdom has its own pace. It makes you wait for it—wait for the inner voice to come to the surface of your tempestuous mind, but not until waters of thought settle and calm.

“Hurry kills all that we hold dear: spirituality, health, marriage, family, thoughtful work, creativity, generosity…name your value. Hurry is a sociopathic predator loose in our society.”

There is so much that is involved in our hurry.  But seeing it for what it is and what it can do is a great place to start.  Just go to God and let Him know You need Him, really need Him.  Would you just be honest with Him?  Would you?

Yes, yes!