It seems these quarantine days, perhaps coming near to a close, have projected families into either one of two speeds: Faster or slower.  Faster if both parents have needed to still fully engage in their full time jobs, or even discover how to keep their businesses from crumbling with ingenuity and creativity, whilst homeschooling children and not having the ability to reach out for help.  Faster really just translates to stressful rather quickly, and has the propensity to escalate swiftly, being shaped by worry and anxiousness. 

On the other hand, slower if your job remained secure but could not require the same amount of work from you, or even a loss of job that has kept income at bay but given time in return.  Still shaped by worry and anxiousness, albeit, slower.  One friend posted simply, “What is happening to me… I’m drinking boxed wine and doing puzzles.”  Accompanied marvelously by a photograph of eight completed puzzles and an empty wine glass.  I still smile thinking about it. 

You have heard me share plenty in recent weeks of the need to reacquaint ourselves with rest, not in the form of Netflix binge watching and freezer pizza, but rather in the ways that are restorative to our souls.  It seems the timing happened to be right, as our family was slowing down given a shift in our circumstances, at which time we began reading “How to Ruthlessly Eliminate Hurry” by John Mark Comer, and then found that the oncoming of our nations stay-at-home mandate pushed us to consider the health of our family dynamic, the priority that we had made busyness, and the ceasing of anything other than family or work.  We were summoned to slow, or at least narrow down our focus.

Although here’s the thing about slow, and I am not sure how your perspective has been shaped coming out of this ordeal, but we often attach slow to a luxury only afforded to one income households, or to a poor work ethic, or even its own form of laziness.  Unrelated to each other, and yet on their own they stand as a reason for our inability, or unwillingness, to discover slowness. 

My life circumstances can’t afford such a luxury.

I am too hardworking.

My personality doesn’t do lazy.

In the final pages of Comer’s book, he ends with exactly the push towards eliminating hurry that he could have easily started the book with so as to combat any hesitancy.  (Perhaps he did, but I started the book so long ago that I can’t remember.)  Although allow me to share his insight with you:

“‘Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life.’

I’m struck by the juxtaposition of Paul’s words.

The word “ambition” next to the word “quiet.”

Those two words sound like enemies, not friends.  When I hear ambition, I generally think of hurry (or its new synonym: “hustle”) and all that comes with a driven, careerist kind of life.  I imagine the latest celeb entrepreneur or type A professional – driven to succeed, even at the cost of his or her soul.

But Paul says we are to aim our ambition – the pent-up energy and drive that we all have at some level – at something else entirely: a quiet life.

That’s the goal, the end, the vision of success: a quiet life.

Of all the adjectives on offer, Paul opts for quiet.

Not loud.

Not important.

Not even impactful.

Just quiet.”

This probably resonates with me because somewhere along the way I developed the understanding that ambition is simply a part of my passionate, driven, dreamer make up.  More specifically, that to be passionate and driven and to dream is the very antithesis of rest, but comes in results and measurable success.  Perhaps I have been on staff at a church for too long.  Or perhaps I have witnessed the pursuits of others and internalized that I am only most identifiable by my accomplishments.  Maybe it’s that in my 20s I saw Facebook move from an exclusively college student platform to any and all that wanted it, and experienced the social media shift from staying connected to showcasing zeal.

Although what if we reimagined, or rather, unveiled the original meaning of ambition.  Not only that, but to reclaim all the words that we correlate with ambition – passion, drive, dreams – not merely as success we can see in numbers or share in Instagram posts, but as an aggressive pursuit towards that which engages and refreshes our soul. 

Because here’s the thing.  To find rest is hard.  To make margin for slowness is to tackle a completely new balancing act.  To cater to conversation, to free yourself of hurry, to sit in stillness long enough to tap into undiscovered creativity may sound like luxuries that we cannot afford, but only because we have made them so.  Luxuries are those things that require little of us because a certain set of ideal circumstances have permitted their existence.  Slowness is no luxury.  It requires a great deal of passion, a driven intentionality, and an exorbitant amount of self.

Visualize with me a dancer.  A ballerina perhaps.  She moves effortlessly to the elongated melodies of the cello.  Her arms curved flawlessly, imitating graceful waves of sound.  Her toes brushing the floor beneath her.  Her legs caressing the air with leaps like that of a gazelle, as though she was made for this from the day she was born.  We exhale deep breaths at her ability to move so effortlessly.  We feel that perhaps her ability to be at such ease in her movements means that we too can dance with equally as much grace and poise.  Except, we know it’s not that simple.  We know her skill has only come with immense amounts of discipline.  We know her muscles are surging with energy in every move, even though her body appears weightless.  We know that the mark of an accomplished dancer is one where her audience can admire her movements as natural and effortless, as though no work is required of her.  On the other hand, a dancer who executes the same movements, even with proper form and polished technique, yet where we see an intense amount of effort and striving, we relegate as struggling or not nearly as accomplished.

Should this not equally be the case in our world of hustle and infatuation with accomplishment?  If you see someone that you would identify as ambitious, passionate, driven – all of the expressions that we have come to covet and praise – but they are exhausted, then perhaps they are not doing it well. 

Jennifer, you don’t have my life.

You don’t have my children.

You don’t have my limitations.

You don’t have my boss.

You don’t have my debt.

Perhaps not.  My story is the only one I can speak for.  Although there was a time I thought in the same way, and most often it translated as “You don’t have my personality.”  Until I realized that circumstances, and even personal disposition, feed off of what you tell it.  Not the other way around.  If you want your children to stand in your way, they will fall well into that category.  If you want your boss to push you towards a life to which you are slave to their unrealistic demands, they will do so without much thought.  I do not at all wish to take away the uniqueness of your story.  Sometimes a change means risk and loss that we are afraid to consider, even though we know the unhealthiness of a situation.  But please allow me to divulge in this thought without throwing walls up, for as different as all of our stories are, I believe many of us in our humanness are much the same.

Our circumstances have the potential to be used not as hindrances to this different kind of ambition, one of quiet and restoration, but as opportunities to put the dance of the disciplined to the test.

I have by no means mastered this class.  My heart still has the propensity to give resounding attention to worry, hurry, grumbling, and exhausted accomplishment.  Why even only a few nights ago I was overwhelmed to tears by the unknown of our family’s circumstances.  In that moment, my first inclination was to spiral down a thought pattern of mistrust, prodding at ways that I could “fix” the situation.  Finally I went downstairs to wash the dishes, which was quite a feat as our dishwasher is broken, but I am thankful for the extra minutes. It took that extended time for me to shift my perspective.  To pour myself more intentionally into gratitude.  To look back on my story and be reminded of the countless times provision has come on the back of the unknown.  And mind you, not just provision, but even experiences that seeped into my desires, well above any practical needs.  I wish I could have said that such an approach was my first inclination.  No, that evening it wasn’t, but the training grounds were still there for me to remember the movements of quiet trust.  And I can tell you that foundation was not built on the struggle bus.

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EXPOSITION:

What if you made the intentional choice to redirect a portion of your zeal and ambition towards that which refreshes your soul?  The work will require much of you.  You will need to combat every successful entrepreneur that remarks on sleep as being for the dead.  You will need to exhort every innate craving for contentment inside of financial security, materialism, and showcase worthy success.  You will have to fight the urge to tell others you are busy so as to feel that what you are doing is important.  You will have to reshape ambition to mean so much more than hustle and hurry.   

RISE:  This is not a ploy to dismiss hard work, to engage in laziness, or to regularly sleep in.  This is an intentional effort to let your ambition pour into so much more than to-do lists and hurried hustle.  Jot down ways that you can exchange this old way of ambition for a focused pursuit of tending to your soul.  Here are some suggestions:

• • Practice gratitude.  I shared a bit of our story in last weeks writing when it comes to our intentional practice of gratitude.  The worries and tasks that felt so imperative to a successful life began to take their proper place.  For us, gratitude begins around the breakfast table.
  • Share a meal around the table daily, free of distraction and engaged in conversation.  Food is nourishing.  Relationships are nourishing.  The skills required of you in giving yourself to the table are equally as necessary as a well-stewarded kitchen or the honoring of a project deadline.
  • Set your phone to downtime.  My apps “shut down” at 10pm, after realizing that I fell prey most readily to the blackhole that devices are in the evening before bed.  I can’t even tell you how many times this simple limit has made way instead for more time reading or journaling or doing that which has been far more necessary to my spirit after a day full of meals and children and cultivating and pursuing.

DENOUEMENT: The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty. -a proverb of King Solomon