Finding Joy in Living Slow
Finding Joy in Living Slow
Despite the setbacks, I’m accepting the challenge of truly finding joy in living slow. As my husband and kids do life on the other side of my quarantine, I am in solitude and trying to figure out how to rest.
God does cool things. Sometimes in hard ways. Wowzers. Thanks for your prayers!
Ok back to this week’s blog. Carry on!
Train Your Mind into Finding Joy in Living Slow
I don’t know what you have to do to slow train your mind. Some people have to take the scenic route when driving or slow down by not going to sleep and waking up with their phone in their hand.
Maybe you need to slow down your mind by simmering your ambitions that are not given to you by the Lord.
It’s very easy and tempting, for an achievement addict like me especially, to add things to my plate that God didn’t put there. And by doing that, what am I asking for? I am asking to burn out.
I am asking to be over-extended. I am asking to get to a point where I think, ‘wow, I have nothing else in me.’
And it takes away from the priorities that God did give me, in being a parent, in being a homeschool mom, being a wife, trying to keep my house managed.
That, in and of itself, is a full time job. Add on top of that the other things that I’m trying to accomplish. It’s a lot.
Personal Ways I Find Joy in Living Slow
So, I’ve gone through several months trying to sift through all of the things to figure out what exactly God wants me to do.
And if He has asked me to do something specifically, I have to believe with all my might that He has given me the wisdom, energy, and power to accomplish it.
- Homeschool mom
- Wifey
- Trying to keep my house intact with food and laundry and dishes done. It’s not easy.
- But I also have this fitness business that has monthly challenges, with daily posts that I share. And I show up for that everyday to like and comment on people’s stuff when they work out.
- Then I have this writing passion of mine. I’ve started working with Lysa Terkeurst and her team to come up with book number two’s proposal.
You can look at all of that and think that it’s all too much, but you have just as many things on your plate.
Count them! I dare you! You have things in your family that are weighing on you. We all have things. And when we want to slow down, it can be scary.
We tend to think that if we slow down, the whole world is going to fall apart. If we slow down, all of the balls are going to drop.
There’s nothing wrong with ambition. There’s nothing wrong with going for it. There’s nothing wrong with having the DNA that makes you an overachiever, yours truly is that.
There’s nothing wrong with it as long as it’s not damaging the process and you’re not trying to generate that gumption within yourself and see yourself as the hero here.
Solomon’s Take on God Being the Hero
God has always been the hero. He is the one who is going to provide your needs financially, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically, etc.
Guys, you are not the hero. God is the hero.
I want to share with you what Solomon, the wisest man who has ever lived, had to say about quiet and calm, and bridling our ambition so that we are truly only doing what God has asked us to do.
“Then I observed that most people are motivated to success because they envy their neighbors. But this, too, is meaningless — like chasing the wind.” Ecclesiastes 4:4
You have to decide for yourself if that’s you.
“And yet, better to have one handful with quietness than two handfuls with hard work and chasing the wind.” Ecclesiastes 4:6
It’s better to have less with a quiet and calm cadence in your life, than to have more with hard work that’s going no where.
Do you see what I am saying here? It’s ok to have quiet and calm, to slow down. Because if you have all of this hard work, it’s not going to get you anywhere faster than where God was wanting you to go anyway.
I love Ecclesiastes. I opened it after I finished Proverbs and figured I’d just continue and it has rocked my mind.
“And it is a good thing to receive wealth from God and the good health to enjoy it. To enjoy your work and accept your lot in life — this is indeed a gift from God. God keeps such people so busy enjoying life that they take no time to brood over the past.” Ecclesiastes 5:19-20
God has given you enough to occupy your mind and your hands, stop focusing on everything else. Just focus on what God has given you and find delight in that.
“Enjoy what you have rather than desiring what you don’t have. Just dreaming about nice things is meaningless — like chasing the wind. Ecclesiastes 6:9
I don’t know about you guys, but when I think about chasing the wind, it sounds stupid, for one (honestly), but it also sounds exhausting.
I am kopophobic, I have a fear of being exhausted, because I have been burned out too many times. I have hit rock bottom too many times. I have over-extended myself too many times.
So with that being said, I don’t want to use all of my energy because I don’t want to be tired. I mean, that’s going to happen, but its going to be a beautiful exhaustion when you use up all of the energy that God has given you for that day to accomplish His tasks.
And it will feel slow, it will feel just right. It might feel like a stretch, because it’s not always easy. Sometimes God asks us to do tough things that require a lot of faith. And maybe He puts things on us to stretch our faith.
Final Thoughts: Finding Joy in Living Slow
I want you to know this, finding joy in living slow doesn’t have to be a speed. It just has to be a position of surrender.
When you have a slow mindset, you aren’t achieving less, you’re just understanding that you don’t have to walk in front of Jesus.
He is here, walk behind Him, with Him, let Him carry you. But if you try to run faster than Jesus is leading and guiding, it’s like chasing the wind.
So slow down.
Cherish these weeks left of the year.
Don’t hope for the future, live in the present.
I love the idea of living a 24 hour life. That gets me through every single day when I think that I cannot do this for one more day.
But God says yes you can, and you know why? Because He has called you to it and you are exactly where you need to be.
xoxo
