MONDAY MORNING REFLECTIONS ON THURSDAY: THE HURRIEDER I GO

BY STEVE DUNN

It's Thursday. I should have written this on Monday.  After, it's my regular feature,
Monday Morning Reflections."  I'd like to think the days went by in a blaze of useful activity but they really disappeared in a haze of "whatever."  If I think hard enough I can account for the passage of time, but I am not sure if how I passed it was worth the consumption of those minutes, hours and days.  In fact, I have this frustrating sense that I have wasted those days.

I didn't know until today that Lewis Carroll is the author of this quote, but right now I am feeling that "the hurrier I go, the behinder I get."

So is my problem the lack of focus or the speed at which I live?

It seems that our culture is enamored with speed--and its partners: immediate, just do it, keep on trucking,  seize the moment--and their little sister, "whatever you do, don't fall behind."

At least once lately I have nearly been in accident.  Another driver (often with a cell phone in hand) does something unpredictable.  I have had to decide what to do in a split second;  I have been fortunate but if we had needed to split the second even more, the outcome might have been a disaster.

It's times like these that I am grateful that my life is in someone else's hands instead of mine.

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High

will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.^a

I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,

my God, in whom I trust.”

“Because he^b loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him;

I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

He will call on me, and I will answer him;

I will be with him in trouble,

I will deliver him and honor him.

With long life I will satisfy him

and show him my salvation.”  Psalm 91.1-2,14-16

This doesn't mean I just let life carry me along in its currents, trusting in God to send a rescue party when I start to drown--but it does mean that in the rapid, often-unfocused days in this world; I better sure that I am hanging close to God.